Hell Hath no Fury
by Tim Radley
Summary: Three part Tomb Raider story. A figurine of a winged-woman that Lara Croft uncovered in Greece leads to unforseen troubles.
1. Part 1 - Megaera

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Hell Hath No Fury Part 1: 

Megaera 

by Tim Radley

[trad50@yahoo.co.uk][1]

Tomb Raider, Lara Croft, her image and likeness are trademark and copyright © of EIDOS Interactive and Core Design. No infringement or challenge to these copyrights is intended.

This story contains violence and strong language. 

This is intended to be the first part in a larger three-part story, although I've tried to write it so that it stands as a story in its own right. I really would be extremely grateful to receive any comments or criticism you might have – particularly as to whether it's worth continuing with parts 2 and 3.

****

* * * * *

Prologue

Redness.

It pulsed and throbbed as if it was alive, distorting the air and the cave walls so that they appeared to bleed. 

It wasn't real: simply a twisting of perception. However since, for 99% of people, perception and reality amount to the same thing the distinction was a moot point.

Something moved at the heart of the pulsating redness. A silhouette appeared. It was suggestive of a tall, thin man although no details could yet be seen. There were footsteps too, although they sounded subtly wrong – uneven and dragging: interspersed by a hard, regular tapping sound.

As the silhouette grew larger and more distinct, the ragged footsteps getting louder, shapes and patterns started to form amidst the redness. Gradually they became more defined, coalescing into recognisably images.

There was a woman; lithe and fit, dressed in shorts and a tank top with her long hair pulled back into a single braid. Even tinged blood red it was obvious that she was very beautiful. She was walking through caves, her step careful and measured and her gaze fixed upon the ground in front of her. One hand held a flare, blazing incandescently. 

For a time the image just showed her walking. Then she came to an abrupt halt. In front of her was what appeared to be some kind of shrine. With everything bathed in pervasive redness it was difficult to pick out precise details – an archway surmounted by a harsh, angular looking face, gazing downwards: a shelf of carved rock. The woman stopped in front of the shelf of rock and contemplated it for a period. Then she leant forwards and carefully lifted an object from its surface – a slender, graceful looking figurine.

The image fell apart like a reflection in a pool of water someone had just dropped a handful of pebbles into. From its heart stepped the silhouette that had been approaching, now recognisably a man. The redness began to fade.

The man stopped and leant for a moment on the strange looking walking stick he carried. At first glance the expression writ upon his face was a broad, joyous smile – as if everything about the world was good. On a second, closer, deeper look, however, it was obviously something quite different.

He recognised the woman he had just been shown.

He had seen her once before, several months ago now, walking away from him across an airport concourse.

Coincidence could be an unholy thing sometimes.

The redness had faded away entirely now, leaving behind it a cave not entirely dissimilar to the one in the vision. Abruptly the man began walking forward again, limping badly and using the stick to help support his weight.

Behind him was a stone archway surmounted by a harsh, angular looking face, gazing downwards. Beneath it was a carved stone shelf. 

It was occupied by something considerably more substantial than a delicate figurine now though.

Something that resembled a pale starfish flopped upon the ground beside the shelf and twitched. The impression of life was illusory however: one last reflexive firing of motor-neurones. Beads of dark, glittering red liquid ran down that pale object in rivulets, dripping from lifeless fingertips to collect slowly into a congealing puddle upon the stone floor.

The man's 'smile' as he continued to walk away broadened, displaying perfect teeth.

_Blood is life_.

_Blood is power_.

_Blood is divinity_.

* * *

The Aegean. So blue and tranquil in the mellow evening light that it didn't seem like it could possibly be real – some kind of elemental archetype of what the sea _should_ look like but in reality never was.

The tide lapped softly against rocky, shingled beaches, a soft breeze stirring the balmy air with the fading of the day. Granite cliffs rose steeply on three sides of a secluded bay, seabirds spiralling overhead. The grass on the clifftops had been baked to golden brown by the prolonged heat of the Grecian summer and the earth was hard and dusty.

Amidst this idyllic setting, overlooking the cliffs and the bay, was a cluster of large khaki tents. A less than colourful circus was one way of describing it, and certainly from the perspective of the local populace it resembled a circus in any number of respects. 

About a hundred yards from the tents, roped off and with work wrapped up for the day, was the dig site. Broken walls rose from the ground like the uneven stubs of a giant's teeth, uncovered after millennia long burial. Slowly the outlines of a recognisable temple complex, impressive in its scale, was taking shape where only a few months before there had been nothing except more sun scorched grass and a few oddly regular looking rocks.

Inside one of the tents Professor Nikolas Daskalopulu lent back in his camp chair and let out a prolonged and heartfelt yawn. Immediately this was followed by a frantic pinwheeling of his arms as he struggled to prevent himself tipping over backwards in an undignified heap. A string of Greek curses ensued shortly afterwards as he succeeded in knocking a half full coffee cup from the trestle table, all over his lap.

The curses died out. Today nothing – not even this – would spoil his mood. 

At least, he reflected as he gazed ruefully down at his stained and dripping lap, he had managed to miss the computer. And frankly, given the way the swill tasted, this was probably the best place for it. Preferable at least to inside his more than ample stomach.

He leant forward and clicked to send the e-mail he had just finished composing, then powered down the computer. He knew himself and realised that there was no sense in trying to do any further work this evening the way he was feeling. The edgy, Christmas-eve sense of excitement made him clumsy. Much better to wait till morning when he would be calmer.

_Am I getting old?_ There had been a time, and not too long ago at that, when he would have worked right through the night in a state of demi-fever.

_Old at forty_. Beneath his black moustache a smile split his face. All being well he hoped for at least another forty years. 

_Bah, I am a young man still_. Although he had to concede that beside some of the graduate students he was positively ancient. _When did they all start looking like children? I swear they looked older than that in my day. . ._

Booming laughter. _You _are_ turning into an old man Nikolas_.

His gaze happened across the find they had made that afternoon.

The feeling reminded him of the first time he had kissed his childhood sweetheart, Anna. Trembling, sweaty-palmed excitement. Nervousness and eagerness in equal measure. A sweet epiphany of uplifting joy, and the sense that something profound about the world had changed forever.

It had been sealed inside a plastic preservation bag and was still caked in so much dry mud that it was all but impossible to tell what it was at first glance. If you stared at it for some time you began to see the outline of a delicate looking statuette – a vaguely feminine figure, just over a foot in height with what looked like feathered eagle's wings. The visible portions of it were stained the pale green of verdigrissed metal.

Six years.

It was difficult to believe, but it was over six years since he had last seen something similar to this. _Ah, Lara, what are you doing today I wonder?_ And._ Are you still as beautiful and reckless as I remember?_

She would be over thirty now, he reminded himself. Likely a different woman to the one he still remembered so vividly. Nikolas smiled fondly at the memories that flooded back. He hoped she would respond to his e-mail quickly. Even that he might get to see her again in person.

Perhaps that was the cause of his excitement rather than the artefact they had uncovered.

_What the hell was that?_

"Cristoph? Julia? Is that you?" 

No, he reminded himself. They were down at the village, having a meal and some well-earned drinks with most of the others. He'd promised that he would join them later on.

_Calm yourself you old fool_. There were any number of different things that could make such a noise, and likely any number of people still around the camp. 

The attempt at reassurance didn't do much to slow the sudden pounding in his chest though. There had been something about that noise he hadn't liked. A stealthy, furtive something. Still, no one else seemed unduly worried about it. He forced himself to relax.

_You're not turning into an old man Nikolas. You're turning into an old woman._

There was a second sound, very similar to the first. His heart rate went through the roof again.

He reminded himself that there were security guards who would take care of anything out of the ordinary. It was a fact of life that archaeological digs attracted there fair share of weirdoes – people who felt a mystical attachment to the earth and believed that it shouldn't be defiled; others who had watched one too many episodes of the X-Files and saw strange conspiracies round every corner; sundry treasure hunters hoping to make off with the discovery that would make them rich; those who were simply curious. By now he should have become used to it.

Nikolas tried to settle down and failed. Puffing out a breath, he pulled himself to his feet. Better take a look, just to reassure himself. Otherwise he would be worrying about it all evening.

_Old woman._

It took several seconds for his eyes to adjust. The sun had fallen below the level of the cliff-tops now and there were deep aisles of shadow between the tents, the light having taken on an almost surreal golden haze. 

The only thing he could hear was the wind stirring through the grass and the distant cries of gulls. The camp around him had taken on the feel of a ghost town.

The silence was strange. Somehow eerie.

"Theo?!"

No answer. A frown furrowed Nikolas's sunburnt brow. He knew that Theo for one had stayed behind to catch up on his notes.

"Theo!" Louder this time. He half fancied he could hear an echo. _There has to be someone around here_.

That quiet, stealthy sound, this time more distinct. It reminded him of a dry cough, or an unpleasant, rasping chuckle. Nikolas froze in his tracks. 

"Hello, is there somebody there?" The way his voice wavered betrayed his nervousness.

What alerted him to the presence behind him he didn't know. Nothing more scientific than the prickling of the hairs on the back of his neck.

He turned and saw the black silhouette, emerged from between the tents behind him. "Who. . ?"

Something hit him in the chest. Suddenly Nikolas was lying on his back, flat out on the hard-baked earth. He couldn't breath. It felt as if he'd been pummelled by giant fists, all the wind knocked from his body. His mouth worked, but his lungs refused to take in air.

The silhouette – a figure dressed in military blacks, his brain noted distantly – stepped over him without a backward glance. He was carrying some kind of unpleasant looking submachine-gun.

_I've been shot._

Nikolas felt he should have been outraged by the realisation, but he couldn't muster the energy for anything more than distant curiosity. _Funny, I always thought it would hurt more._ The world had become blurred around the edges and it was all but impossible to concentrate.

The figure stepped inside Nikolas's tent. There was a fleeting surge of outrage. _No, keep your hands off her you bastard._ He fell back after a brief, futile attempt to stir himself, unable to summon either the energy or the desire.

Then the tent flap fell shut, cutting off his view of anything that happened next.

A soft exhalation. Nikolas's eyes rolled back, gazing ever upwards at the beautiful, satiny blue sky.

* * *

The door closed. 

Winston scratched the tip of his nose and let out a slightly disgruntled sigh. What he was supposed to do with this he didn't know.

He took a couple of paces to the side, looking at the object sitting in the middle of the hallway from a slightly different angle. To be absolutely honest he wasn't even sure precisely _what_ it was. 

Much as he tried to take an interest, the old butler had never managed to fully appreciate his mistress's defining passion. There was always this nagging little voice saying it was just more old clutter that would need dusting. It left him feeling slightly ashamed of himself. This was, after all, priceless treasure from centuries and millennia past. He ought to be able to appreciate it slightly more than he did.

She could at least have mentioned that it was being delivered.

A fond smile broke across his face. For all the things he had seen Miss Lara grow up to be – intelligent, self-confidant, beautiful, passionate – she could be rather absentminded about every day matters most people would take for granted. Most of the time it was an endearing trait, reminding him forcibly of the mischievous pixie-like little girl he had known. Occasionally though it could become a little wearing.

An ark, he decided at length. _Was that the correct word?_ Certainly, something about the way it looked reminded him slightly of the Ark of the Covenant that had used to sit in the living room. 

Whisper it quietly, but Winston had been rather glad when that had been stolen. He'd never felt comfortable around the thing, though if pushed he wouldn't have been able to explain exactly why. Maybe it had just been his imagination, but it had seemed to cast a pall over the entire room. Miss Lara had never appeared to notice, but then she was away in some distant part of the world or other more often than not.

There was an ornate gold box – probably gilded rather than solid – with two long wooden poles arranged on either side for the purposes of carrying the thing. The box was styled in a manner that reminded the butler of a miniature pagoda with a pair of small doors that opened outwards set in the front of it. From the struggles of the two men who had delivered it the thing was damned heavy too.

_Buddhist in origin_. _Perhaps Tibetan_. Winston felt obscurely proud of having worked that out. Maybe some of that archaeology business was rubbing off on him after all.

It didn't, however, provide much in the way of inspiration as to what he should do with it.

_Best leave it till Miss Lara gets back_, he decided at length. At the moment she was away in town – as Winston persisted in thinking of London – having lunch with someone. A man even. In his opinion she didn't do that sort of thing nearly often enough, and she was hardly a child anymore. . . None of your business, he reminded himself firmly.

One thing for certain, he wasn't going to be shifting it on his own. Twenty or thirty years ago maybe. . . 

He shook his head. Couldn't be standing around doing nothing all day, could he? It wasn't as though the old house ran itself was it? There were arrangements that needed to be made before he could take the afternoon off. One of his grandnieces was visiting him later on – something to look forward to.

For a moment there was a burning impulse to lean down and try opening those doors to see what was inside. There must be something inside, mustn't there? It couldn't be that heavy on it's own surely.

Winston shook the urge away. No, let Miss Lara take care of that sort of thing. She was the expert in such matters and he didn't want to inadvertently damage anything important. Plus there was the possibility lurking in the back of his mind that this could turn out to be some sort of Asian equivalent to Pandora's Box. Yes, that would be just his luck. 

And rampaging hordes of demons would be bound to create no end of mess. . .

Chuckling to himself at the thought, he walked past the strange object and stepped through the front door. Yes, plenty of things that needed to be done for sure.

****

Part I-Megaera (the Grudging)

"So, how was St. Petersburg?"

Lara felt the colour rising to her cheeks and she was unable to manage an immediate response. She looked away, out of the restaurant's window at the brilliantly sunlit London street, then tried re-arranging the pasta on her plate with her fork. It didn't help the search for an appropriate reply.

"I'd rather not talk about it just now," she eventually managed, feeling her cheeks burning. Or ever, if she had any say on the subject. Those particular weeks of her life were ones she would quite happily see permanently scrubbed clean.

"Ah. I see. Sorry. Sensitive subject I take it."

_Who are you calling sensitive?_ Lara bit back the sharp retort, knowing it was irrational. This wasn't turning out quite the way she'd envisaged.

Emil looked like he was struggling. "You went on holiday to Haiti a while back didn't you? What's it like? It's somewhere I've never been before." Safer ground here surely, his expression seemed to suggest.

"Less relaxing than I'd hoped for." She heard the snap in her voice and felt her blush deepen even more. Another subject she would rather not go into just at the moment.

For a time an uncomfortable silence fell between them. They tried to cover it up by concentrating fixedly on eating and making expressions over how exceptionally delicious the food was. It was fooling nobody.

Strange, Lara thought as some of the edge faded from her discomfiture. Normally conversation between them came naturally and easily, without effort. They enjoyed each other's company on the rare occasions they found time to see each other, and got on well together. As soon as they tried to put some kind of formal structure on it though. . . Called it a date say. Well, it just went straight to hell. Social skills dwindled to nought and everything suddenly became strained and stilted. It just didn't make sense.

She studied him closely as she ate. Tall, muscular, and athletic looking. Head shaven smooth and skin like polished ebony. Smartly dressed in an expensive lightweight suit. Still wearing those glasses he didn't need. 

He was definitely a very handsome man. _An attractive man_. The two weren't necessarily always the same thing. 

_Admit it girl you _do_ find him attractive._

And her friend. If she looked at it closely she would be forced to admit there were few enough people in this world she could call true, close friends. Emil was definitely one of them. They'd been through a lot together.

Perhaps that was the problem. With friends it became more complicated than the usual, I'm a woman, you're a man, we find each other attractive so lets have sex type thing. There was a lot more at stake. 

_And when it comes to it I'm crap at long-term relationships_. Sad, but true. Casual sex she could just about manage.

"So, did you get up to anything interesting in America?" She tried again. There were only so many times you could say how good the pasta sauce was and be convincing. _I mean for Christ's sake we're both adults. This shouldn't be totally beyond us_.

Emil opened his mouth, then shut it again with a click. He tried a second time with no more success. "Oh you know. This and that. Nothing special," was what he finally came out with. His expression was distinctly uncomfortable. Another avenue of conversation brutally axe-murdered.

"Okay. That makes it two to one. Should I go for the tie?" Lara's tone was dry.

Suddenly Emil burst out laughing. After a moment she couldn't help but follow suit. She was aware that some of the Italian waiters and their fellow diners were looking at them slightly oddly but couldn't bring herself to care. _Upper class darling, not my place to feel embarrassed_.

"Christ, we're a right pair," Emil gasped as the laughter subsided.

"That we are," Lara agreed with a smile.

"So, do you think we should talk about the weather? That's supposed to be a safe, traditional English pastime." 

"Nice out, isn't it." Lara tried to keep a straight face and failed abysmally. It had been over 30° Celsius every day for the past week. "Well that about covers that topic I think."

"I never asked you how your morning's been."

Lara groaned. "You don't want to know."

Emil was grinning. It made him look very different – younger. "Would that be a genuine 'you don't want to know', or more of a 'I'm going to rant and rave about it at great length for the next half-hour' kind of 'you don't want to know'?"

Lara pursed her lips. "Well probably more of the second kind actually," she admitted, gesturing with her fork. "You know, I always convinced myself in the past that I avoided spending much time at the museum because it was a dull, dry, dusty place populated by uninteresting fuddy-duddy types too caught up in debating minor academic points of little importance to do any sort of real, exciting, hands on archaeology. I've realised over the past couple of days that I've been lying to myself."

"Oh?"

"Yes. The real reason I've stayed away is that crawling around in dank, trap-laden tombs with instant death waiting around every corner is safer, more relaxing and much, much less stressful. I'd compare the place to a warzone, except it's not. It's far more hazardous and nasty than that. I mean there's no Geneva Convention governing conduct for interdepartmental sniping." She gave a mock shudder.

Emil chuckled. "Surely you exaggerate slightly?"

"Umm? You try inadvertently suggesting something that happens to contradict Professor Montgomery Arthurton's latest theory on the interrelationships between early civilisations. After you've spent several hours picking out all the resulting shrapnel _then_ tell me I'm exaggerating."

"Ah." Emil wisely left it at that.

"To top it all off I've just been lectured to by my nominal department head over the obligations of my tenure." She muttered something beneath her breath that didn't sound as though it was particularly flattering. At Emil's blank look she explained: "I'm supposed – the word my so called department head used was 'obligated' – to publish no less than three papers in any given financial year."

An elegant shrug of her shoulders. "I guess I have been a little lax on that front of late. But most of the times I've tried any serious archaeology recently it's just ended up with people trying to shoot me. It's not as though they don't get a great deal out of our association already." She sighed. "Bloody accountant. I suppose I'll just end up doing what half the others sometimes seem to: churn out any old rubbish I should be ashamed to put my name to. As long as they get their three papers a year though, they seem to be happy. It's quantity, not quality that counts nowadays."

"Unlike when you were a lass of course."

Lara laughed. "Oh, don't start that again."

"Seriously though, if you don't like it why do you bother? I mean, it's hardly as though you need it financially anymore is it?"

She made a face. "Listen to me whinge on. Something about that place must be catching. It's not that I don't like it, per se. I've got friends there – a few of them at least – and it keeps me in human contact. And I have to admit that being Lara Croft of the British Museum does have its advantages. It opens doors that would stay shut if I was just plain old Lara Croft."

"One thing you'll never be Lara is plain."

"Emil, you know what I think about cheap and pointless flattery."

"Yes. I was under the impression that you loved it."

They shared another brief laugh. "So what about you then Emil?" Lara finished off the last of her pasta and took a sip from her wineglass.

"Got some time off from the day job," The less said about that particular aspect of his life just now the better. "Moved into a new apartment overlooking the Thames."

Lara let out a low whistle. The price of any property in Central London was extortionate. Anything in view of the river was likely to cost a not very small fortune.

Emil shrugged. "A perk. The job's got to have some. At the moment the whole place smells of paint. I get uncontrollable sneezing fits whenever I spend more than about ten minutes in the place." He grinned. "Still, I'm not going to complain.

"I've visited my mother and my sister. Done all the little jobs that I've been meaning to do but never got round to for the past year. Now I'm at a bit of a loose end. I guess I need to learn how to relax more. The art of doing absolutely nothing comfortably is a much underrated skill."

"So, to paraphrase what you're saying, you ran out of anything better to do, and in a state of desperate boredom decided 'I know, I'll see if Lara wants to come out.'"

"I. . . er. . . I. . ." Emil's mouth worked like that of a beached goldfish.

"Emil, I'm teasing you." Lara smiled, shaking her head.

One of the waiters chose that moment to come and take their now empty plates. "Was the meal to your satisfaction?" His voice had a heavy Italian accent and it sounded like he was repeating a phrase he had learnt by rote.

"Excellent thank you." Emil smiled at him. "My companion commented on how good the sauce was on several occasions."

Lara felt her cheeks colouring again. _Thanks a lot Emil_.

The waiter just responded with a blank, uncomprehending grin.

There was a dull, reverberating thud. It resonated through the entire structure of the restaurant, the condiment set in the middle of the table falling over with a loud clatter and the chairs beneath them rattling violently. Several bottles fell down from behind the bar and shattered. Lara's fingers dug hard into the tablecloth.

For a couple of heartbeats there was silence, then several dozen car alarms went off at once in the street outside. Where a moment earlier everyone had been shocked speechless, uproar now rose from a score of throats simultaneously.

"What the. . ." Lara cut herself off. It had felt like a mild earth tremor. She'd experienced several of them before on her travels. London wasn't known for its seismic activity though.

As her head turned she noticed clouds of blue-grey smoke billowing from the front of an anonymous looking building further down the street. A number of pedestrians were picking themselves up off the pavement, looking dazed.

A bomb. The so-called "Real" IRA or some other extremist faction intent on wrecking the Good Friday Agreement. That was her next thought. Though what kind of strategic target this particular part of Soho made god alone knew.

One of the pedestrians in particular caught her eye. He was standing around with a dazed, unfocused expression on his face, his eyes seeming to stare at something a million miles away. A line of blood trickled down the side of his neck, staining the collar of his white shirt.

She was perplexed for a moment about why she found the man so interesting. But Emil was staring at him too, so she obviously wasn't alone in her assessment.

In fact Emil was more than just staring. His mouth was hanging open and if he'd been Caucasian you'd have said he'd 'turned ashen' or 'gone as white as sheet'. He looked slightly like somebody who'd just been whacked between the eyeballs with a mallet.

She started to ask him what was the matter but never got that far.

Emil stood up so rapidly he knocked his chair over backwards. "Lara I. . . I've got to go." He wasn't looking at her, his attention still fixed upon that man. "Something's just come up. I'll give you a call. . ." His voice trailed off as he started heading rapidly for the restaurant door.

"Wait!" But Lara was suddenly talking to empty space.

As Emil stepped outside onto the sundrenched pavement the dazed-looking man finally appeared to notice him. The look that crossed his face could best be described as stark, panic-filled horror. An instant later he turned on heel and broke into a staggering, uneven run.

Emil launched himself after the man.

Lara rose to her feet, gazing after the two rapidly departing figures in mounting annoyance. This was not quite what she'd envisaged from a lunch date. 

_Bugger this_. 

She started to pursue.

* * *

The doors in the front of the pagoda-like box shifted fractionally, as though something inside was pressing against them. A couple of seconds later they popped open.

For a moment it was difficult to comprehend what was inside. Then it moved. 

A human being, contorted beyond what most people would credit was possible. Granted, the volume of the box was just about large enough to hold a small person, although to external appearances they'd need to be dismembered first.

An arm hove into view, slender and flexible, child-like hand opening like a blossoming flower. A second arm appeared, then a head, shoulders and legs, slowly followed by the rest of the torso. It took more than a minute for the figure to extract themselves completely. At the end of it though a woman was standing alone in the middle of the entrance hall of the Croft ancestral home.

Her name was Hsu Yi Wen.

She was a thief, although she preferred to think of herself as an artist – worker of impossible deeds.

A quick glance could leave a person with the impression that this was a child: two-inches under five feet tall; fine-boned and delicate as china porcelain. That impression would be misleading though.

Closer inspection revealed a fragile, feminine beauty. Even then the onlooker was likely to miss the fact that this was a beauty forged from steel, and not in reality so fragile after all.

Hsu Yi was twenty-eight years old. Late of Hong Kong, more recently fled to London ahead of the too-interested Chinese authorities.

For several minutes she stood in place, stretching; working life back into her overstretched and abused muscles and joints. As she swivelled her head back and forth the sound of popping and crackling cartilage could be heard. The expression on her face remained serene, no sign of any pain or discomfort showing.

She took her time. There was no hurry.

Hsu Yi always researched her targets with scrupulous attention to detail. She knew for instance that Lara Croft was working at the British Museum today and wouldn't be back for at least six hours if she stuck to her usual patterns. She also knew that the butler, Winston took Wednesday afternoons off, visiting with members of his family and would not return until tomorrow morning. She knew a lot of other things too.

Of course, nothing in life was guaranteed. Life was chaos after all, and anything could, potentially, happen at any moment. One thing Hsu Yi had come to learn though was that human beings strove to impose order on the chaos.

So you didn't let all the minute possibilities worry you. If you worried you got nervous. If you got nervous you didn't perform to the best of your abilities. If you didn't perform to the best of your abilities you made mistakes. If you made mistakes. . .

Hsu Yi never made mistakes.

No, not quite correct.

Hsu Yi never made mistakes when she was doing a job.

Better.

Finally she appeared to be satisfied that she was physically ready to begin, the worst of the cramps and stiffness worked away. She moved.

It was like watching a wild animal. Swifter, quieter, more aware than any human could normally manage to be. There was a tightly controlled sense of urgency about her. Although it appeared she had a lot of time, she also undoubtedly had a lot of work to do.

* * *

Emil was no longer gaining on the man.

Initially, whilst his target had still appeared dazed and unfocused, it had seemed that the race would be over almost before it began. But the man had quickly found his stride and turned out to have quite a turn of speed. Enough anyway to keep the gap between them at around ten yards.

Emil tried to inject more pace. 

Perhaps he started to gain a fraction, but it wasn't fast enough. He could feel his leg muscles beginning to burn, his lungs straining for more and more oxygen by the second. The heat of the sun beating down on the back of his shaven scalp was near unbearable and he could feel the sweat pouring off his body in bucket-loads. Today was a day for lounging in the garden or beside a pool. Not for conducting harebrained sprints through London's streets.

Timothy Hutchings. That was the man's name. He was supposed to have been dead these past five years.

Emil hurdled a pushchair that veered in front of him, ignoring the mother's angry shout. The toddler being pushed along slept through the incident in blissful oblivion. Emil lost another four or five yards of ground.

Once he and Hutchings had worked together, during his time at MI6. To call the man an old friend would be stretching the truth more than a little, but they had on occasion shared a drink over lunch.

Passers by stopped and stared at the two men engaged in headlong flight with a cow-like curiosity. Nobody moved to intervene.

Not that Emil expected them to. It was an ugly truth that a woman could be raped in full view on a crowded tube train and no one would do a thing to try and stop it. Similar incidents had happened in London, Paris and more than one US city. _Keep me out of it, it's nothing to do with me_ was the all too pervasive modern attitude.

Perhaps he should be grateful.

A black man and a white man engaged in a chase. On whose behalf would they intervene? Call it cynical. Call it underestimating his fellow man. Unfortunately it also happened to be the truth.

Hutchings veered without warning down a side street. Emil, caught out, almost overshot. Another few yards were lost. 

At least now there was some shade. It came as a blessed relief. He forced himself to dig deeper, and slowly began to draw back some of the lead.

He'd been at Hutchings' funeral and could still recall the forlorn tears of the man's mother. It was an awful thing to believe that you have outlived your only child.

A parked van blocked most of the route ahead of him and Emil felt his shoulders scraping against brickwork as he squoze between it and the wall. Hutchings turned onto another wider, more populated thoroughfare and for a moment disappeared from his field of view.

Burma. Hutchings had died in Burma. _Supposedly died_. It had been work related of course. Emil had never been in the need-to-know chain so he didn't know exactly what had happened. Whispers had implied that Hutchings' cell had been betrayed by someone. That rebel gunmen, under the impression he was working for the Burmese government, had taken Hutchings down.

Into the sunlight again. He was definitely closing now, though still not quickly. His lungs felt like they were bellows being used to fan the flames of hell. He could feel lactic acid building in his legs, and they were starting to feel as heavy as lead. At least the man he was pursuing now appeared to be suffering somewhat too.

There had been a body for the funeral, Emil recalled. Well, there had been a coffin, he amended. It wasn't necessarily the same thing.

This street was more crowded, making it harder to make headway. At least here his extra bulk and physical power gave him an advantage in barging his way through the masses. The gap between them began to close more rapidly, Emil able to see beads of sweat gleaming on the back of Hutchings' blonde, crew cut head.

It was definitely Hutchings. Emil had a good eye for faces – a necessary skill in the business he was in – and he'd had absolutely no doubt. The reaction when their eyes had met had merely been reinforcement. Recognition followed moments later by what he could only describe as stark terror.

Terror of him.

_What the hell had Hutchings – a man supposed to have been dead for five years – been doing standing outside a building that had just exploded?_ Maybe just coincidence. Everything that happened in life was a coincidence in one way or another, so Emil wasn't blind to the possibility. You just needed to look at other options first.

_And why are you chasing him?_ A question that up to now he hadn't asked. He remembered Lara back at the restaurant with a sharp pang of guilt.

Hutchings' luck ran out. He collided with a man stepping out the front door of an adult video store and was knocked flat on his back.

Emil was going so quickly that he almost ran straight into Hutchings, tripping over the fallen man. He managed to arrest his momentum just in time. As Hutchings struggled to regain his feet Emil grabbed hold of the man's shirt, spinning him round onto his back and pinning him in place beneath his bulk.

For a moment Hutchings made a half-hearted attempt to break free. Then their eyes met. Hutchings fell still.

They held each other's gaze for several seconds as crowds of people flowed around them, trying to ignore what was going on. 

Fear. Horrendous, almost soul-destroying fear. That was what Emil saw in Hutchings' washed out hazel-green orbs. A resigned, dreadful hopelessness.

_Why is he so afraid?_

"Hello Emil. Fancy seeing you here." Hutchings' attempt at a smile cracked and broke apart. Emil could feel the man shaking in his grasp and relaxed his grip a fraction.

"Hutchings. You know that you're supposed to be dead, right?"

A shaky laugh. "Oh, yes. I know. Though I don't think I'm going to have to worry about _supposed_ for much longer. Do you Emil?"

In perplexion. "What? What the hell are you talking about Hutchings?"

Hutchings opened his mouth to reply. No sound came out. 

Emil felt his vision flicker, as if a shadow had passed across it. From that instant everything went cold. He could still feel the sun beating down on his back, but it seemed to have lost its ability to impart warmth. Inside a seed of unease sprouted tendrils of fear.

Hutchings' mouth was working like that of a beached goldfish, opening and closing rapidly but with no sound coming out. The man's shaking had become more violent, his head twitching from side to side.

Emil released his hold on the front of Hutchings' shirt, pulling back from him. For a moment he was unable to reconcile what was happening; didn't know what he should do. 

Then he caught a vague impression of _things_ – invisible, unseen buzzing things – swarming around Hutchings' head. Things that exuded malice and hunger.

"Hutchings! Snap out of it." 

The man appeared to have been overcome by some kind of seizure, his back arching taut, His hands clawed feebly at the air around his head, which thrashed violently from side to side.

Somewhere somebody screamed. A child, stopping and staring, pointing. Not at Hutchings seemingly, but at the air above him.

_Good-bye Emil_. He never was able to tell if those words were real or simply an invention of his mind.

Then Hutchings was wracked by another convulsion, more powerful than the ones before it. His eyes had rolled back into his head so that only the whites now showed. Suddenly a geyser of blood exploded from his gaping mouth and Emil jumped back in horrified shock.

More screams rang out from all around now.

One last, juddering jolt, Hutchings' legs kicking and thrashing briefly against the pavement. Then he lay still. The front of his shirt was bright red with gore and his eyes stared sightlessly upwards. 

Emil could hear himself hyperventilating, scarcely able to comprehend what had happened.

Suddenly the coldness that had enveloped him dissipated and it was again almost overpoweringly hot. He didn't notice – just stared down at Hutchings' body, unable to stir himself from where he knelt.

Neither did he notice the black S-Type Jaguar that pulled rapidly to halt at the curb beside him, or hear its door opening. _What the hell just happened?_ The image of blood geysering from Hutching's gaping mouth was fixed in his mind's eye. _What the hell can do that to a man?_

Finally the shouting of the person inside the Jaguar penetrated.

"Emil! Get in this car NOW!"

* * *

A child-like hand reached behind the back of the diving board mount, fingers questing across the tiled surface. After a moment they located a tiny catch, almost invisible to the naked eye, and started to feel around its edges.

Yes, this was probably what she wanted.

Without hesitating any longer, Hsu Yi pressed the switch.

There was a soft click, almost imperceptible. Nothing else happened. 

Hsu Yi waited a few seconds. Not that she had truly expected to see the results in here, she told herself after any kind of concrete result had failed to materialise.

Shafts of sunlight streamed down through the ornate skylight, though the temperature of the air around her was refreshingly comfortable. She looked around herself again – the swimming pool, surrounded by mosaic covered walls and floor. Black and white marble. Alcoves filled with luxuriant plants. A matching pair of jade feline statues, each with rubies for eyes.

_One day I will possess splendours such as this._

There was no envy in that inner voice. Just an assurance that it was meant to be so. She suppressed a fleeting urge to stop and prise the ruby eyes from those jade cats, just as she had suppressed the urges of pocket any number of objects and artefacts that she had known to be worth a small fortune. That wasn't why she was here. 

A professional never allowed themselves to be sidetracked from their true purpose.

_Now, to find out what that switch had done._

Her footfalls were light and soundless, appearing almost to glide across the floor without touching it. She walked swiftly through the massive gymnasium, pausing just long enough to check that nothing had changed. The sheer range and amount of equipment in there was staggering, but given what Hsu Yi had learnt about Lara Croft it had not come as a surprise.

She stopped in the short passage leading between the gym and the entrance hall, merging with the shadows as she stood stock-still. 

On her way in she had noted the door there, amidst all the oak panelling. There had been no visible door handle and it had refused to budge so much as a millimetre when she tried her shoulder against it. From the feel of it she'd guessed there were thick metal plates beneath the wood. 

A search of the surrounding panelling had failed to reveal any kind of hidden mechanism, so she had given up temporarily and moved on.

Part of her had expected to see the door now standing open. But, no. It was still firmly closed.

One delicately arching eyebrow was briefly raised, then lowered. Otherwise her expression remained bland and impassive. Obviously the switch did something else.

Hsu Yi wasn't overly perturbed. To her practised eye the internal and external dimensions of the house didn't quite add up. The place obviously had a secret room or two somewhere in its vast frame. Perhaps the switch had opened one of those.

If so there was a very good chance what she was looking for would be located there.

She didn't see the newly opened alcove right away. Not until she was halfway upstairs and happened to glance back, over her shoulder. Where previously there had been a bookcase there was now a gaping, shadowy opening.

Initially Hsu Yi was disappointed by what she found. Just dark-stained wood panelling. A slight frown briefly marred her beautiful, flawlessly smooth face.

There was no sense in a secret alcove that held nothing. No logic.

_Ah-hah._ Her searching fingers located another hidden switch. A cautious lady this Ms. Croft. A hidden switch, whose only purpose was to open access to another hidden switch. One might even go as far to use the word paranoid. If one was unaware of what she was trying to hide.

Hsu Yi felt a brief surge of excitement. This had to be what she was looking for. She smothered the feeling ruthlessly. _Calm. It doesn't do to – as the English say – count chickens_.

Click.

There was a quiet rumbling sort of sound behind her and she turned around. A section of wall directly opposite was in the process of rolling upwards. 

A ghost of a smile touched her small, severe lips. This was more like it.

As the section of wall stopped retracting Hsu Yi started to walk cautiously towards the opening that had been revealed. There was some kind of light flickering from inside. Definitely a good chance of this being what she was looking for.

Suddenly the wall dropped back again with a thud, blocking off the opening. The unexpectedness of it made Hsu Yi start. That hint of a smile instantly vanished.

_Pressure pad triggers in the floor?_ Or perhaps, she mused, some kind of invisible beam that she'd inadvertently stepped through. With a fractional shake of her head she turned back to the alcove and tried the switch again. 

This time she simply stayed where she was in the alcove and watched as the wall retracted once more. Shortly afterwards it dropped down again, blocking the opening.

_Seven seconds._

The door was obviously timed. Hsu Yi studied the distance, factoring in that a person would be starting from an awkward position having just pressed the activation switch. And it was seven seconds until the wall shut entirely. The gap was only large enough for just over six.

_Perhaps Lara has her butler open it. _Yes, that seemed the only sensible explanation. The switch was designed for use by two people.

_You should have made it five seconds Ms. Croft._

Hsu Yi thought she could make it. It would be very tight indeed, and certainly most people would not have been able to. _Let us see_. . .

This time the moment she pressed the switch she rolled, springing to her feet and launching into a frantic flat-out sprint, feet a blur of motion. _Halfway_. The wall was starting its descent. _A third left_. The gap was closing fast. _A quarter_. She wasn't going to make it. . .

Hsu Yi threw herself forward in a desperate rolling dive, a small involuntary scream emerging from her throat in the expectation of the wall crashing down on top of her. . .

Thud. The wall slammed close.

She'd made it. Three inches to spare. She sucked in deep breaths of air to still her racing heartbeat. _Easy_.

As she slowly got her breath back she began to look around at her new surroundings.

Something beside her laughed.

* * *

Lara slowed to a halt, watching Emil's back as it dwindled into the distance, hot on the heels of that man. 

There was, frankly, no way she was going to be able to keep up with them. At least not dressed the way she was. The knee-length jade-green Indian-silk wrap skirt, sleeveless cream coloured blouse and heeled sandals might look stylish, and they were certainly expensive, but you wouldn't want to do any Olympic-style sprinting in them if you could possibly avoid it.

Lara folded her arms across her chest. _Bloody ex-policemen. They see someone running away so they just have to go and chase them._

Part of her wanted to scream aloud in frustration. At Emil. At whoever the hell that man was. At the whole world in general. Just occasionally, every now and again it would be nice if some aspect of her life worked in something approaching a normal manner. 

_Careful what you wish for._

She realised that she was now standing directly outside the front of the building where the explosion had occurred. Broken glass was strewn across the pavement, glittering like jewels. Wisps of smoke still trailed from the vacant windows. 

She couldn't tell what purpose the building served. There were no signs or logos with a company name, or any other indications of its usage. It looked like nothing more than generic office space, possibly even unused. 

A frown crossed her face. Now that she looked more closely she could see bars in the window, painted white so they didn't show up very well. And the rather restrained way the glass appeared to have shattered – that suggested it had been reinforced. Rather surprising security measures for your average office.

She pushed the thought aside. All around her car and shop alarms were still going off in a blaring cacophony. In front of her a woman was sprawled on her side on the pavement, clutching her head and looking as if she had no idea where she was, let alone what had happened. Lara dropped to her knees beside her, intent on seeing if she could do anything to help. At least it looked as though the woman had managed to avoid being cut by flying debris. 

_You'd better be able to come up with a damned good explanation for running off like that Emil._

Just then the front door burst open. Four men emerged in a rush, all of them wearing balaclavas that concealed their faces, and appearing various degrees of smoke blackened. The trailing pair carried pistol grip shotguns. One of the others was carrying a dark green holdall with the fourth man leaning against his shoulder for support and limping.

_A robbery then. _Not a bombing like she'd assumed. Although that explosion had seemed rather extreme for the purposes of safe cracking.

A white Ford Transit van that had been parked about a hundred metres further up the street screeched to a halt beside the pavement, brakes squealing. The side doors were thrown open by someone inside. As the leading two robbers piled in, a security guard – blood pouring down the side of his face and skin blackened as though with soot – appeared in the doorway, a revolver in hand.

"Halt!" The man's voice was strong and commanding despite his battered appearance.

The only response was that one of the two men armed with shotguns discharged his weapon, blowing a sizeable chunk from the doorframe as the security guard flattened himself.

_What kind of a place has gun-toting security guards?_ In Britain even the police weren't allowed to routinely carry guns.

Lara belatedly noticed that the man who'd shot at the security guard was backing straight towards her and the fallen woman. She tried to move aside but it was too late, and in any case her skirt got in the way. There was a collision.

The man crashed into her, tumbling over backwards and sprawling across the pavement, caught completely unawares. He lost his grip on his shotgun. It bounced and span, landing nearer to Lara than himself.

She would never be quite sure why she did it. Instinctive reaction most likely. 

Without thinking she reached down and picked the shotgun up.

Something slammed hard into the side of her head, making her vision spin and dropping her to her hands and knees. The second shotgun-toting armed robber, noticing what she was doing as he came around her blindside, and absently ramming the butt of his own weapon against her skull.

"Naughty girl," he admonished. Lara's ears were ringing so much from the blow that she scarcely heard.

_Crack!_ The security guard, recovering enough to get off a shot from his revolver.

She heard the man who'd just hit her swear vehemently as he felt the bullet pass inches away from his cheek. The other one was in the process of scrabbling frantically back to his feet.

Suddenly, before she could react the man who'd hit her was grabbing hold of her and yanking her to her feet, pulling her back into him as a human shield. He was very strong, able to brush aside her initial feeble struggles. The arm around her was so tight that she could scarcely manage to draw breath. The whole world seemed to be spinning madly before her unfocused gaze.

"Drop the gun or I remove the top of this lady's skull." The hot steel rim of the shotgun barrel pressed into the side of Lara's head. Her gyrating vision stabilised just enough to see the security guard raise one hand placatingly, then lower his gun to the pavement. _No you idiot!_

She felt the shotgun being removed from the side of her head, then heard its roaring bark. The security guard let out a raw visceral bellow, going doing clutching his leg.

"_Would you two stopping arsing about and fucking get in the van_!"

The shout came from behind her. Lara used the slight distraction it gave to drive her elbow hard into her assailant's solar plexus. She heard the breath leave his body in a whoosh and felt his grip on her loosen just enough for her to be able to yank herself free. . .

. . .and before she could do anything else the man who had tripped over her to begin with punched her hard in the stomach, doubling her up. Then he picked her up as easily as if she was a rag doll and heaved her bodily through the van's gaping side door. Her knees jarred painfully against metal, and momentarily she was blind in the gloom of the van's interior, her vision struggling to adjust from the brightness outside. 

Then the two gunmen were scrambling inside behind her and she heard the door being yanked shut. It went even darker.

As Lara attempted to rise someone's booted foot took her hard on the side of the head. Through the swirling rush of blood in her ears she was vaguely aware of an engine gunning – the van lurching as it pulled away from the curb. Then unconsciousness swallowed her whole.

* * *

__

Release me.

The voice reverberated inside Hsu Yi's head, powerful and inhuman. She was standing in front of pedestal that came up to about chest height, topped with a glass case resembling a miniature aquarium. It was filled with some kind of liquid that appeared to glow with a soft, pulsating blue light.

Her gaze was captured by the glass case's contents. 

A dagger.

Not just any dagger. Perhaps the single most magnificent looking dagger she had ever laid eyes on. No, more. Perhaps the single most magnificent _thing_. 

It tumbled end over end in that bath of bluish liquid like some kind of exquisite perpetual motion toy.

It was Chinese. She knew that instinctively. Like her.

_That blade, bright and scintillating, sharper than any razor. That golden dragon's head, perfect in every minute detail. That scale finished hilt and purple gemstone, which caught the light in glittering pattern_s. . . Suddenly the room around her vanished and she was standing on a snow covered mountain peak, wind swirling all around her. The view went on forever and the sense of exhilaration was simply breathtaking. 

The dagger had somehow found its way into her hand. 

It was warm, the sensation tingling all the way up the arm that held it. The sense of power was palpable. A voice was speaking inside her head, though it was doing so with images rather than words. Scales and fangs, so bright and strong and beautiful. Flames, warm and hypnotic and so, so inviting. An army of men, racing into battle before her like ants, swarms of arrows filling the air. Heat welling up from inside her belly. . . 

Absolute knowledge that she was supreme and indestructible.

She was holding the dagger raised before her in both hands now, its blade angled down, pointing at the centre of her chest. _Yes! Yes!_ Her voice, or someone elses? Without conscious decision the blade was suddenly rushing down towards her. . .

A gasp as it parted the flesh between her breasts, embedding itself to its hilt as easily as if it were parting warm butter. There was no pain. Just power and exhilaration and joyous laughter. A sense of completeness that made her want to weep with the perfection of it. Verdant light exploded all around her. . .

With ragged, gasping breaths Hsu Yi found herself back inside her own body, the room swimming into focus around her. She was shocked to discover herself on her knees before the case containing the dagger, her face so close to it that her breath was clouding on the glass. Her hands gripped its edges so tightly that her knuckles had turned white. She could feel herself trembling violently, beads of sweat running down the side of her face and along her spine.

"No, I am not here for you!" She thrust herself away from the pedestal, disoriented and scared.

_Take me. Take me._

The desire to do just that was almost overwhelming. It was an effort to fight it down. Hsu Yi had to stifle a shudder. 

_What the hell kind of woman was this Lara Croft, to possess such things?_

She had of course heard and read a multitude of stories, but she'd dismissed most of them as outlandish rumour or exaggeration. _Maybe too quickly._

She forced her attention away from the dagger – no easy task – and looked at the three other, matching pedestals that the room held. They were not exactly comforting either.

Nearest to the dagger was another glass case holding an object that reminded her of a stylised eye. Concentric outer layers rotated ceaselessly around a small, central core that glowed with incandescent golden light. Compared to what she had felt from the dagger she couldn't bring herself to question the impossibility of either the rotation or the glow. At least it hadn't shown any inclination to talk to her. _Yet_.

Then, behind that in yet another liquid filled case, was what appeared to be a hand made from translucent blue crystal. She had the bizarre and paranoid impression that as soon as her back was turned it would start to wave at her.

Lastly, not inside a glass case this time, there was some kind of golden idol. She would have guessed that it was Incan, or Aztec, or maybe Toltec. Or some other ancient mesoamerican civilisation at least. Beside the other objects on display it appeared almost ordinary. 

Except that it was probably worth more than the entire house around her.

_That is not what you are here for_, Hsu Yi reminded herself for the tenth time. A niggling inner voice asked what harm taking it as well could do. She resolutely ignored it.

The problem was that the object she was looking for nowhere in sight. _Take the dagger. You came for the dagger. Don't you remember?_

_Ahhh! Shut up!_ It was an effort not to scream aloud.

_Okay so it is somewhere else_. There was plenty more of the house that she had yet to search. 

Except that did not feel right. This was, Hsu Yi instinctively knew, _the_ secret treasure room. The place where Lara Croft stored all of her strangest and most valuable finds. It was in here somewhere. She just had to look.

Slowly she moved around the room's wood panelled walls, searching for any kind of hidden drawers or compartments.

Briefly, as she passed beneath it, she glanced up at the leering T-Rex skull mounted above the fireplace. _Some kind of tacky faux hunting trophy?_ It wasn't even as though it looked at all real. _I mean, fresh, yellowing bone?_ Hsu Yi had seen dinosaur bones before in museums and knew that the fossilised remains were invariably a grey-black sort of colour. A fractional sneer twitched across her lips. She couldn't decide if the thing was a display of hubris or simply delusion.

Minutes passed by agonisingly slowly. All the time there was a maddening whispering, grating through the back of her skull. Suggesting. Enticing. Gnawing at her sanity. Hsu Yi was sure that it emanated from that damned dragon-carved dagger.

She was at the point of admitting defeat – giving up and going on to make what she knew would be a futile search of the rest of the house. Then a section of wall sprang open beneath her touch.

It took her so much by surprise that she jumped back several paces. She couldn't have said exactly what she had done to trigger it. 

_But you don't look a gift horse in the mouth._ Another English phrase she wasn't entirely sure she understood.

Initially she was disappointed. Four more artefacts of translucent bluish crystal, akin to that bizarre looking hand in the display case. One of them, she noticed, was carved to look like a lizard. Valuable no doubt, but again _not_ what she was looking for.

After a few moments she found that shelf the objects were set in could be slid backwards. Doing so revealed a space beneath them.

Paydirt.

She almost couldn't see it in the shadows but she knew immediately that she'd found what she was looking for. A tentative hand reached inside and lifted it out, into view.

It was considerably lighter than Hsu Yi had expected, and for a moment doubt flickered through her mind. _What if it was a fake – some kind of decoy? How do I tell?_

No. She coldly ordered her thoughts quiet. There was no reason for it to be. That dagger – _set me free! Set yourself free!_ – was clearly more valuable; more dangerous. Yet it was openly displayed. This was real.

She studied the object in her hands. Compared with the artefacts around her it was mundane: disappointing even. Yet it was this she had been hired to steal. 

_And nothing else_. The instructions had been quite specific about that part, and she got the impression her client would be most disappointed if he found out otherwise.

A figurine of a naked woman, made from some kind of metal so badly verdigrissed that it was now coloured a pale, blotchy green. Still, despite her state of wear and decay she appeared to be a lithe and graceful figure. There were feathered wings sprouting from her shoulders, remarkably intact all things considered. Yet she was certainly no angel. Completely the wrong time-period for one thing. And angels didn't, as a rule, have eagle's talons instead of hands. 

Neither were their expressions usually quite so _furious_.

One of the three sisters that were collectively known as the Erinyes – amongst the oldest and most mysterious of ancient Greek deities still known. In Roman times they became known as the Furies.

Hsu Yi wondered briefly which of the sisters this was – Megaera, Alecto or Tisiphone. She dismissed the thought as irrelevant with a shrug. That was for her client to worry about. It made no difference to her.

_Not even bronze_, she mused as she turned it over in her hands. At least not solid bronze. It was far too light for that. _What made it so valuable?_ It puzzled her, she had to admit. On the surface at least she would have said that it was the least valuable object in this room by far. _Well, except for that obviously fake T-Rex skull_. 

Still, some people found value in the strangest of things. It wasn't worth worrying about. All she had to do was finish the job she'd been hired for.

She took a foldaway bag from a pocket and carefully inserted the figurine into it. Then she zipped it shut. Time to go. Lingering would only allow chaos greater opportunity to pull its pranks.

And thieves didn't get paid by the hour.

The dagger called after Hsu Yi as she left.

* * *

"Are you sure you used quite enough explosive there Hicks? Maybe you need to try slightly more next time." A flat, East-Coast American accent containing more than a little sarcasm.

"Yeah Hicks. You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off." A more than passable impersonation of Michael Caine there, though from the underlying accent the speaker was obviously no stereotypical cockney wide-boy bank robber. More Hampshire than Hackney Marshes.

"Ha, bloody ha. You pair of sarky gits," was Stephen Hawking's considered response.

Slowly returning to consciousness, her head pounding, Lara felt herself frown. _What the hell was Stephen Hawking doing amid a van full of armed robbers?_ She could still hear the engine and feel the road surface rumbling beneath the wheels. Every now and again she would be thrown to one side or the other as they rounded a corner. 

Her head cleared a fraction. Well obviously it wasn't Stephen Hawking. For one thing it was difficult to imagine the author of 'A Brief History of Time' using the expression, y_ou pair of sarky gits_. Somebody else with a computer-generated voice then.

Stephen Hawking, as her brain persisted in labelling him, went on. "I swear that amount of explosives should never have had that effect. There had to have been something else in one of the other boxes. Otherwise it was just impossible. . ."

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever Hicks. Just admit it was a screw up. Jeesh, we could have all been killed." This was another, different American. His voice had a distinctly whiny edge that Lara took an immediate and powerful dislike to.

Lara was now fully conscious. And when it came to it damned uncomfortable. 

It felt as though a marching band was pounding its way through her head, and that wasn't even the worst of it. She was lying face down on the floor of the van, several muscles screaming from the position she was in. It took her a moment to realise that her hands were bound behind her back. _No, not bound. Handcuffed._ The metal was starting to chafe her wrists raw.

As an added delight someone had stuffed a dirty rag into her mouth as a makeshift gag. Every time she inhaled she could taste and smell the fumes from engine oil, meths and god alone knew what else. An attempt to spit it out met with no success.

Part of her started to panic.

Lara fought the feeling down with considerable effort, locking it away in a distant corner of her mind. She could still hear it though, distantly trying to break free. 

Whatever way she tried to look at the current situation bright sides were rather thin on the ground. A_t least I'm still alive_ being about the best she could come up with.

_For Christ's sake Emil!_

No, no. Irrational to blame him. Nevertheless, anger felt like an improvement. _Stupid bloody sod_.

". . .at least your leg wasn't injured," Stephen Hawking was saying. _It's Hicks_, Lara reminded herself forcibly.

"Hah. What about this blasted ringing in my ears then? If I've got permanent tinnitus I'll. . ." Whiny American. Whining.

"Ladies, ladies. Calm down, please." This was the English would-be Michael Caine impersonator. "We're all friends here, right?"

The whiny American muttered something beneath his breath that Lara didn't catch.

What she needed to do was get her hands out from behind her back. Then maybe she would have something to work with. Lara opened her eyes cautiously, able to see a forest of legs around her and nothing much else. Unfortunately, she concluded, these gentlemen were unlikely to sit around idly while she did so.

"You're all aware of course that we appear to have lost Hutchings. I just mention this in passing." Michael Caine again, his voice dry and sardonic.

"Fuck him." Whiny American, sounding vehement. "He's not one of us, is he? He's the One-Legged Man's pet dog. Let him take care of himself."

"I'm sure the One-Legged Man would just love to hear that assessment." Michael Caine apparently had sardonic down to a fine art. "No, my point was more did anyone see what happened to him? He does after all know who all of us are."

"Took off with this black guy running after him." A fifth voice from someone who'd remained silent up till now. "Looked like something personal to me."

"Fuck". The heartfelt way Whiny said it made it seem as if everything that happened was directed purely at making his life miserable.

"This black guy a cop do you think?" Michael Caine asked.

"Contrary to popular belief Simon, I'm not personally acquainted with every policeman in London." _So Michael Caine was called Simon then_.

They were talking about Emil and the man he'd chased, Lara realised. She cursed herself silently for being slow on the uptake.

"Look, for once I agree with Travis." This was the American who had first spoken. The non-whiny one. From the authority in his voice and the way everyone else stopped and listened Lara had him down straightaway as the leader of this bunch. 

"Fuck Hutchings. He knows how to take care of himself. And even if he's taken he's not going to give us up. If I know one thing it's that you don't ever do anything to cross the One-Legged Man."

_Who the hell is this One-Legged Man?_ Lara could hear the capital letters in the name, and wondered briefly what kind of a mess she'd managed to get herself caught up in. Some kind of crime boss by the sound of it. And belatedly: _so Whiny's called Travis_. 

She wasn't sure if that was a first or a last name.

". . .There are more pertinent questions that need addressing," non-whiny American finished.

"Like what the hell's with sleeping beauty here? That one really sticks out a mile." The fifth man again. She couldn't quite work out his accent. Maybe Australian or South African blurred and softened from living in London for several years.

"Yes Travis, perhaps you'd like to elaborate on that one. Because I'll admit I'm stumped."

Lara got the sense that all eyes had now turned to look at the hapless Travis. He was the one who'd thrown her in the back of the van obviously. Probably the one who'd kicked her in the head too. 

_I owe you Travis_. There was a brief surge of despair as she realised she was not in a position to 'owe' anyone anything. 

_Calm, girl, calm_. She tried pulling against the handcuffs whilst hopefully attention was distracted away from her. There was always the chance that the handcuffs were designed for a man and might have been put on in a bit of hurry, without proper attention to whether they were fully closed.

"Look, she tripped me up and tried to steal my gun." Travis sounded defensive. "What was I supposed to do? Let her? Anyway, it was you who had to go and use her as a human shield Lomax, so don't go giving me any of that holier than thou crap."

No good. All Lara had succeeded in doing was rubbing her wrists a little rawer. Although the handcuffs _were_ slightly loose they weren't loose enough.

"Jesus fucking Christ Travis!" The leader, Lomax, not sounding best pleased. "What the hell were you thinking?"

"Blasphemy like that is never necessary." It was Stephen Hawking – _Hicks; Hicks; his name is Hicks_ – who spoke next. There was a general all round groan.

"You know Hicks, I liked you better before you caught Religion," Lomax commented absently. Religion sounding about equivalent to genital herpes. "Given the rest of our activities I very much doubt that a bit of blasphemy will have much affect on my mortal soul one way or another."

"It is disrespectful. I do not like to hear it."

Lomax grunted neutrally. "I'm waiting Travis."

"What do you want me to say? I'm sorry? I fucked up? If it helps I'll admit it. It was just instinctive." Travis sounded put upon, as though it was really everybody else's fault except his.

"Great," Lomax muttered. "So Travis, what exactly do you propose we do with sleeping beauty here? I'd be very interested to hear any suggestions." There was a weighty pause. "No? Can't think of anything? Didn't think so. Jesus fucking Christ."

Lomax sighed. "Okay Hicks, I'm sorry. That last bit just slipped out. Nothing meant by it."

"It is not me who you need to be apologising to Lomax." Hicks' jarring computer-generated voice. "Incidentally, it may be of interest to note that "sleeping beauty" as you persist in calling her now appears to be awake."

_Thanks a lot. Just couldn't keep that to yourself, could you?_ Lara felt her throat tighten with fear and had to fight down the urge to start struggling hard against the handcuffs.

"Is that right?" 

Lara felt a shadow pass over her and a moment later a strong hand firmly grasped hold of her chin and tilted it upwards. Her hair, which had mostly come loose from the bun she'd tied it back in, flopped over her eyes. The man brushed it aside and their gazes locked.

Lomax, the American she presumed. A hard, angular looking face was hovering just a few inches above her. Tanned with short-cropped hair that looked black in the van's hot, gloomy interior. He might have been handsome but what Lara primarily saw was hard. Very hard. She forced herself to meet his deceptively mild looking blue eyes without flinching, or letting any trace of the fear she was undoubtedly feeling show through.

After a moment he chuckled. "You know, you've caused us a lot of trouble lady."

_Well pardon me I'm sure. How awfully inconsiderate of me to let myself get kidnapped by you._ A brief surge of anger blew away those traces of fear, indignation taking its place. The rag in her mouth prevented her from giving voice to her scorn, so she had to content herself with glaring at him.

Another chuckle. "Like to think of yourself tough and in control, don't you lady?" His voice was quiet, seemingly intended just for her ears and not his partners in crime. "Well maybe you are and maybe you're not." A fractional trace of a smile that disappeared almost instantly. "You should've left that gun alone though. You really should have. Now we're both of us in a difficult situation, yours more difficult than mine. One thing's for certain lady. You cause me even a hint of trouble and you'll regret it. Understand? I'd like you to nod if you do."

After a moment Lara inclined her head in agreement.

"Good." Another smile, gone so quickly she could scarcely be sure it had ever been there. "You behave yourself and you might just get out of this alive."

"What if she was faking?" This, suddenly from Travis. "What if she was awake all along and heard us talking? That means she knows our names."

Lara saw Lomax close his eyes and draw in a deep breath. Whether he knew it or not Travis was obviously trying his boss's patience more than a little.

"What of it _Travis_?" The Travis part was clearly emphasised. "What precise difference does it make _Travis?_"

"Hey! You shouldn't be doing that. . ." Travis trailed off as Lomax slowly turned to look at him, gulping.

"Travis." Lomax's voice was quiet – dangerous. "Do you need me to draw you a fucking picture? I'm seriously pissed off with you just now, so take a fucking hint and shut the hell up! Got that? Good."

"I. . ." Wisely Travis managed to cut himself off. "Sorry."

Lomax moved back to his seat and an uncomfortable silence settled in. With it now rendered pointless to try and maintain any pretence of unconsciousness Lara attempted to find a more comfortable position. It quickly became clear though, that, lying face down on the floor of a van with a gag in her mouth and her hands bound behind her back, there were only varying degrees of discomfort. She gave up in case it looked like she was trying to escape and just listened to the sound of the journey.

No police sirens, she noted after a time. And also no indication that that the van was being driven in anything other than a normal manner. It appeared that they were managing to make a completely clean getaway. Not much grounds for optimism there.

_How long was I out?_ She could still hear the distinctive sounds of London streets all around, but London was, needless to say, a big place. Were they north or south of the river? Where were they heading and how long till they got there? What happened then?

Wait and see appeared to be the only viable answer open to her though. _Oh good I do so love surprises._

The stifling heat and the vibration of engine and tires were lulling, and despite the discomfort, and the tension Lara started to feel drowsy, her mind wandering off. It came as something of a jolt therefore when they finally came to a halt.

Most of the traffic noises had faded. There _was_ still the sound of cars, but it came from a long distance away. Nearer to it was quiet and peaceful. 

Then one of her captors slid the van's side door open and the peace shattered. Baking sunlight streamed down across her back and suddenly everyone was in motion.

"Get up." Lomax's voice. She was given no chance to try and comply as he grabbed hold of her handcuffed wrists and yanked her forcibly up to her knees. Pain stabbed through her shoulders and she felt the handcuffs biting into her flesh, blood starting to flow. A wince twisted her face but the gag in her mouth prevented any expression of indignation. 

A moment later and a second brutal tug on her handcuffs had her up to her feet. Before she could steady herself a powerful shove in the middle of the back propelled her out of the van door. She stumbled as the heel of her sandal twisted beneath her, going down on one knee and knocking half the skin off it on the rough stones that covered the ground. _Bastard_.

One of the others put a hand on her shoulder and guided her to her feet much more gently than the American had. She found herself face to face with a slightly bizarre looking individual. Stocky and very broad through the shoulders, he was wearing a black woollen hat to cover what she judged to be a completely bald head. He also had a blonde moustache that had been waxed into points either side – it reminded her ever so slightly of Salvador Dali. Yellow tinted sunglasses topped off the weirdness.

He didn't speak so she was unable to match him to any of the voices she'd heard. _Though probably not Travis, all things considered._

At her hard glare he looked away, making her feel obscurely guilty. _For Christ sake, they're armed robbers and they kidnapped you. You don't have to be polite._ Sometimes Lara wondered about herself.

Her gaze took in their surroundings. An expanse of waste ground overlooked by a derelict, graffiti-covered factory. The only sight or sound of other people was a ribbon of motorway about half a mile away – the M25 at a guess. So zero likelihood of anyone seeing them and doing anything.

There were two parked cars waiting, obviously intended to take the robbers on their way once the ditched the van – a black Ford Scorpio and a red Vauxhall Vectra. All well planned out then, though she'd already formed the impression that these weren't a bunch of amateurs on their first job.

"You decided what we're going to do with her yet?" Travis's voice with its ever-present whiny note. 

Lara glanced across at him and was slightly surprised by what she saw. Not a petulant weasily looking man like his voice suggested but a lunking great brute with a heavy and permanent looking glower and a haircut straight from US Marine Corps bootcamp.

"Yes. I think I have." Lomax sounded grim. His face, as she turned towards the sound of his voice, was even grimmer.

Their eyes met and Lara felt her legs go weak and start to shake. 

He was going to kill her. She could see it plain as day. His right hand reached down to free a handgun from his belt. It was a Beretta 92 series, a disconnected part of her noted absently. Like the ones she sometimes used, though finished in matt black carbon steel. There was probably some kind of irony hidden away there if you looked.

The urge to run was intense. 

The only thing that stayed her was the certain knowledge it would prove futile. With her hands secured behind her back, and in these shoes across this ground. . . If she made five yards she could count herself lucky.

She tossed her head back, and tried to appear defiant. Even if they'd removed the gag from her mouth she wouldn't have been able to speak.

_I don't want to die._

Just because you faced death from day to day didn't mean that you sought it. Acquaintance with the possibility didn't, when it came to it, make facing it any easier. 

_Bloody well do something. Don't just stand there. _But she couldn't see anything she could do.

The gun was pointed towards her, its barrel a blank, implacable eye.

"I'm sorry. I was going to leave you tied up in the van until either someone came and found you, or you managed to get free on your own." He sounded almost apologetic. "But it wouldn't work. The One-Legged Man would _know_. He always _knows_. Nothing like this ever gets past him. Then he'd come and kill you anyway. Us too probably, for screwing up. At least a bullet is quick"

_Fuck this One-Legged Man, _Lara wanted to scream at him. The trembling in her legs got worse and she struggled to control her breathing. _Die with dignity? Who the hell is going to care?_

"If it's any consolation I didn't want it this way."

Lara saw in his eyes that he genuinely didn't. But she equally saw that this wasn't the kind of man who'd allow himself not to do something that he deemed necessary merely because he didn't want to do it. And neither would he have trouble killing an unarmed woman. He wouldn't enjoy it. But he would do it.

She stared and waited. And waited. And waited. A miniature eternity passed by.

Then the moment came. She saw the subtle change in his eyes and the tightening of his finger upon the trigger – swallowed heavily.

The man who'd helped her up – the bald-headed one with the odd-looking waxed moustache – stepped between them. He grabbed the barrel of Lomax's Beretta and pushed it to one side. 

Lara almost collapsed as pent up tension was released.

"How low are we willing to sink?" She caught him saying quietly, at the edges of her hearing. He was the Englishman – Simon.

For a time the two men just stared into each other's eyes, saying nothing. It was Lomax who looked away first. 

"Very well Simon, if that's the way you want it." Lara wasn't sure if she was imagining it or not, but there seemed to be a ghost of relief in Lomax's expression – that he wasn't actually going to have to do it. She felt all of a sudden like she wanted to throw up. 

"But remember the saying Simon – if you save a life you take responsibility for that life. That now very much applies here."

Simon simply nodded. "Whatever you want."

"We will have words about this later." Lomax re-holstered his gun and turned away. His attempt to sound ominous didn't quite come off.

Lara became aware of the others, now trying to make out they hadn't been standing around, staring raptly at the little drama that had just unfolded in front of them. There was the one who had to be Hicks – a Frankenstein's monster of scar tissue who looked, from his face, neck and hands, like he had been blown up and sewn back together piece by piece. He was carrying the green holdall she'd seen earlier. The wiry, weather beaten individual with the sandy hair was, by a process of elimination, almost certainly the unnamed Australian/South African she'd heard speaking. Finally, leaning against the van's front door was the driver – a small, slender looking man with wrap-around sunglasses and a receding hairline.

Everybody seemed to remember what they were supposed to be doing at the same time. As the driver began to douse the white van with petrol from a bright red can everybody else started moving for the respective cars.

She felt a hand touch her arm gently and jolted fractionally. It was Simon. His expression looked uncomfortable. "Come on. Sorry, but I can't just leave you here."

Normally her attitude would have been defiant or disdainful. At the moment though she was simply too emotionally drained and let herself be led quietly away.

As she was being helped into the back of the Ford Scorpio the van went up in a whoosh of flame behind her.

* * *

"Would someone like to tell me what the hell is going on?" Emil finally broke the silence. Inside his head the image of Timothy Hutchings spasming and vomiting blood played over and over again.

Neither of the two people he shared the Jaguar with answered right away. He glanced from one to the other. In the drivers seat was Franz, his boss – or to use official company nomenclature, his advisor. A German by birth, Franz was in his mid forties. Heavyset with luxuriant auburn hair and an equally luxuriant moustache he was a distinctive looking individual. And also just about the last person Emil had expected to see today.

The car's other occupant, sitting in the back seat next to him, was a woman. Emil thought she was probably in her fifties, though it was a movie star type of fifties rather than the sort your average mortal experienced. She was very tall – six foot plus was Emil's estimate, though sitting down it was always difficult to tell precisely. She was also very slender – almost supermodelesque – and her sleek jaw-length hair was jet black, without a hint of grey. Dressed in a charcoal suit, he noted that she still had very good legs. In fact, if it wasn't for the expression on her face – like she was being forced to suck the sourest lemon in existence – he would have said she was a very attractive woman and be damned to her age.

"Well?" He prompted when it was apparent that he was going to be ignored.

"Mr. Ngonge." It was the woman who spoke, her accent American – New York if he wasn't mistaken. She didn't sound either friendly _or_ happy. "I hope you realise you've just completely ruined an operation we've spent years trying to set up. An operation of vital importance."

In fact, he decided, she had a voice like etching acid. It took him a few moments to assess the implications of what she was saying. 

"Hutchings was one of us then." Emil had to stifle a groan as the realisation dawned on him.

"Well done Mr. Ngonge." Her words dripped with sarcasm. "A pity you couldn't have been quite so astute several minutes ago, isn't it?"

Suddenly Emil felt his temper boiling. Normally he wasn't a man who was quick to anger, but something about the way this woman spoke to him – even looked at him – made his teeth grate. He took a deep breath – counted to ten. It only wound the anger tighter. 

"Perhaps you could tell me, precisely, what I was supposed to think, hmh? I see a man who, as far as I know, has been dead for five years, standing in the middle of the street. What's more he's standing directly in front of a building where there's just been an explosion. Factor in that I know Hutchings is, amongst other things, an expert in sabotage. And on top of all that, when he sees me he runs away like all the demons in hell are chasing after him. Given all that what would you have done?"

"I would have stopped and thought." Her tone was frosty.

Emil made an exasperated noise. "Okay. Now you've thought about it. What do you actually fucking do? Assuming that is you're capable of taking any decisive action other than patronising people."

The atmosphere inside the car chilled several very noticeable degrees.

"Emil, try to remain calm, please." Franz's tone was conciliatory. "No one here is blaming you for anything."

"Really? You may not be Franz, but she – I'm sorry I didn't catch your name – certainly seems like she is."

A withering glare and her mouth seemed to tighten even further. Emil got the impression that if it tightened any more it would disappear entirely. 

For a time a prickly silence settled in and Emil tried to keep track of where they were going. Inside his head though, images of Hutchings supplanted the images of the streets passing before his gaze – Hutchings, clawing at something invisible that flitted round his head; Hutchings going into violent convulsions on the pavement beneath him. They refused to go away.

"What the hell did that to him? How could he just die like that?" He scarcely realised that he'd spoken aloud, the question more rhetorical than anything else.

He became aware of the woman looking at him; got the distinct impression that she, for one, knew the answer. Before he could say anything though, Franz interrupted. "We'll discuss that later, Emil. That and other things."

And that was that for any conversation. Five minutes later they were pulling up outside a modern looking office block in Docklands, beneath the shadow of Canary Wharf. European headquarters. Emil had only been there a couple of times before. He should though, he reflected, have guessed that this was their destination.

They passed through a bright, clean reception area that could have belonged to just about any corporation on the planet, a blandly attractive receptionist greeting Franz by name. Still none of them said anything, the dominant sound the staccato clicking of the woman's heels.

"Okay, what's all this about Franz?" Emil demanded as the door of the top floor office clicked shut behind them. Floor length windows gave an unbroken view of the Thames and in the distance the London Eye could be glimpsed on the skyline, turning imperceptibly slowly.

Franz's expression was impassive. "Emil, I'd like you to meet Evangeline Stridom – a senior advisor from our American branch over here on assignment." The tall woman favoured him with a wintry little smile.

Emil inclined his head. "An absolute pleasure I'm sure."

"Indeed." After holding his gaze for a few seconds she turned on heel and strode across the room, stopping with her back to them in front of the window, gazing out at the London skyline. "Mr. Ngonge, perhaps you'd care to tell me what you know about a man called Luke Charron."

"Nothing." Emil's response was terse. "Never heard of him." _And I'm willing to bet money I don't want to hear about him now_.

She grunted in a manner that suggested his ignorance didn't surprise her. He was torn between the urge to slap her or just walk out. _Uppity bitch_.

"He's the founder and executive chairman of the Charron Corporation. A New York based investment banking and holdings company. At the last count, taking into account his legitimate holdings, he was the 71st richest man in the United States."

_Big deal._ Emil kept quiet though, much as part of him dearly wanted to make a cutting reply. He wanted to know what had happened with Hutchings. Not this.

"Although if you add in his earnings from, shall we say, less legitimate sources – arms deals, money laundering, drugs: that sort of thing – he's comfortably inside the top thirty. Maybe top-twenty even." This was Franz in his dry, accentless English. "Of course that is all 'alleged' you understand. Several FBI investigations have shown the man to be completely legitimate, with no involvement in any criminal activity whatsoever."

_Which alone should be enough to make anyone very suspicious_. Emil tried to appear interested. Maybe that way somebody would get to the point. _So much for my bloody holiday_.

While Franz was talking Evangeline Stridom used a remote control to bring down blinds across the windows, cutting off the brilliant sunlight and plunging the office into gloom. A projection screen had rolled down one wall, and as Evangeline pressed another button on the remote an image appeared.

It showed a man standing in an office, superficially not unlike the one they occupied now. Behind him was the impressive vista of the Manhattan skyline. He was tall and thin and wore a suit that at Emil's estimate probably cost more than the GDP of several small countries. Black framed glasses perched on the bridge of his nose and he was handsome in an artificial millionaire 'I go to all the best health clubs and have a legion of personal trainers at my beck and call' kind of way. The half smile that the photographer had caught on his lips seemed to suggest hidden depths of humour, charm and intelligence lay beneath the surface. It was probably very carefully posed.

All in all Emil thought, Luke Charron looked very much the stereotype of a go-getting 21st century businessman. In fact, he didn't quite look real: a hollow waxwork of a man.

"This photograph is taken from a profile that appeared in Time magazine last year."

"Highlighting all the charity work he'd done to help land-mine victims in Angola." Franz interrupted Evangeline's flow. "A regular Princess Diana."

"Though not, I gather, to the extent of having died in a car crash." That would be too much to hope for.

Franz gave a humourless chuckle. "Now that you come to mention it. . ."

"Luke Charron has undergone a few changes since this photograph was taken," Evangeline's voice had a distinct edge. Not someone who appreciated being interrupted, apparently. "Three months ago the chauffer driven limo he was riding in was involved in an incident with a tanker truck in New York."

"An incident?" Emil queried, interested despite himself.

"There was a collision at a road junction. The tanker truck's brakes failed and it hit the back end of Charron's limo. The limo was ripped completely in half and Charron was trapped in the wreckage for more than six hours before he was finally cut free. They had to amputate his right leg below the knee to get him out. He lost an eye too – the piece of metal that took it out came with a millimetre of doing irreparable brain damage. His surgeons claim it was a bona fide miracle that he survived."

Her tone suggested this was a miracle Evangeline Stridom could quite happily have done without.

"The woman he was travelling with was less fortunate. She was decapitated and died instantly. Interestingly both the drivers of the tanker truck and the limo escaped the collision without so much as a scratch."

"I take it," Emil responded after taking a moment to digest what he'd just heard, "that this Luke Charron is one of our old 'friends'?"

By old 'friends', he meant a group that for convenience's sake they called 'the Organisation'. _Malandant_i. The Shadow Hand. They'd existed for centuries under a hundred different names, always manipulating and poisoning society from the shadows. Along with the rest of the disparate company he was a part of, he'd spent the last few years of his life fighting against their influence.

"Indeed. You could put it that way. Luke Charron is perhaps the most senior one of them that we've ever managed to positively identify. We believe that he is the current head of operations in the Americas. Perhaps even the head guy full stop."

Emil let out a low whistle. "What about the Indian Gentleman?"

Evangeline sneered. "Ah, yes. The Indian Gentleman. Have either of you ever seen the Indian Gentleman? Found a single scrap of concrete evidence that he really exists? Luke Charron is more than just smoke and mirrors. He is real. He is a threat."

Emil glanced sideways at Franz and raised an eyebrow. Franz simply responded with an almost imperceptible shrug. 

"You'll forgive me, but none of this at the moment is telling me what Hutchings' involvement in all this was – or what happened to him."

"I'm getting to that," Evangeline snapped. Emil winced inwardly. _Ouch._

"Five years ago we recruited Hutchings after he survived an assassination squad in Burma. It was convenient for us that everyone believed he had died back then."

_Convenient for his mother too._ Emil remembered the distraught, weeping woman from Hutchings' funeral again. _Sometimes I think we're just as bad as the other lot_. He kept quiet and listened though.

"We've known – or suspected – about Luke Charron for a long time. It was seen as top priority to get someone on the inside and Hutchings fitted the bill perfectly. He did the job extremely successfully – became one of Charron's most trusted 'odd-job' men – and has been an invaluable source of information ever since, helping us counter a number of major operations we'd otherwise have known nothing about.

"Just over a month ago Hutchings informed us that Charron was coming over to Europe. He'd taken a leave of absence as Charron Corporation's chairman, ostensibly to recuperate from the injuries he had suffered, though according to Hutchings he had much more in mind than an extended rest holiday. Up till today though, Hutchings wasn't able to tell us precisely what he was up to. Except that Charron was putting an extraordinary amount of resource into it, and it was obviously extremely important to him."

And given the state that Hutchings had been in when Emil had last seen him, there wasn't going to be any more information forthcoming on that score. He looked from Evangeline to Franz then back again. 

"Okay. Okay. I get that. I've royally screwed your plans. I'm sorry. Though how I was supposed to know. . ." He shook his head. No sense treading that path again, however much the idea of a screaming argument with Evangeline obscurely appealed to part of him. "But unless I missed something, that still doesn't begin to explain how the hell that. . . That thing happened. Why Hutchings started vomiting his insides out as soon as I laid a hand on him." A shudder, visions of it flooding to the surface once again, savagely vivid.

Evangeline looked grim. "One thing I've failed to mention up to now is the fact that Luke Charron is a Black Magician."

Emil's stared at her, not sure he'd heard right.

"Sorcerer. Warlock. Necromancer. Bokor. Witch Doctor. Shaman. There are a thousand different names for it depending on the culture. But they all amount to pretty much the same thing. Luke Charron is a practitioner of black magic."

"Black magic?" He could hear the edge of shrillness to his words. Inside he was still seeing Hutchings' last moments over and over. Feeling that unnatural cold. "You're telling me that Hutchings was killed by black magic?" It sounded insane.

"You have a problem accepting that Mr. Ngonge?" Evangeline Stridom raised a delicately arched brow. "Given what you saw?"

"You're damned right I have a problem. Black _fucking_ magic?"

An amused quirk of her lips. "Unless my memory is playing tricks on me I seem to recall reading a report written by you mentioning, amongst other things, a demon. How is this any harder to accept?"

"No, no, no. I made it quite clear in that report that it was _no_t a demon. 'An entity purporting to be a demon' was the phrase I used." Emil found himself shaking his head vehemently. He wondered why he found the idea of 'magic' so. . . well, distressing.

"If you find it easier then try thinking of it as 'psychokinetic' abilities or other unexplained 'science' as opposed to magic." Franz's tone was dry. "Whatever it really is, we have very strong evidence that this Luke Charron is capable of calling upon powers that are, how shall I say, beyond the norm."

Emil started pacing. A sure sign that he was tense and on edge. "Okay. Okay. So Hutchings was killed by. . . magic" The word stuck in his throat. "Fine. I'm not going to argue with you." 

"Very good of you I'm sure."

He ignored Evangeline's snide comment. "Does that mean that this Charron guy was actually there the whole time, watching?" Emil tried to cast his mind back, to the crowds of people he had passed whilst chasing Hutchings; all those around them when Hutchings had died. He came up blank though. Apart from the child who had screamed and pointed at the air above Hutchings' head, the only thing he could call to mind was the look in Hutchings' terror filled eyes – the way the man had thrashed and convulsed.

Franz shook his head, his expression showing a hint of weariness. "No. As far as we know Charron doesn't have to be present to trigger. . . what you saw today." He looked away from Emil, seemingly struggling for the correct words. 

At length: "You see, Mr. Charron is more than a little paranoid about the loyalty of those closest too him. He makes all his key personnel take some kind of twisted version of. . . communion. That is the best word I can come up with. It binds them inextricably to him. Allows him to own them body and soul. We've both seen this before, Evangeline and I." A shadow passed fleetingly across his face, quickly smoothed away. "Whether it is keyed to a particular set of circumstances – the subject's capture by 'hostile' forces for example – or whether Charron is able to see events from afar we don't know. But he doesn't have to be anywhere nearby."

Emil digested this. "So you knew about this. . . What did you call it? Communion? And you still had Hutchings infiltrate Charron Corporation?"

"We didn't know." There was a snap to Franz's voice. Obviously a sensitive point: it took a lot to stir Franz from his usual equanimity. "We had no idea how successful Hutchings would be, and until he underwent the process we had no idea what it was or what it involved. By then, unfortunately, it was too late. We couldn't extract him without risking setting off the same chain of events you inadvertently managed to."

"Besides," Evangeline put in. "We all know the dangers of this job when we come in – that there may be a time when we have to sacrifice ourselves for the greater good. It was always Hutchings choice, and he has managed to save who knows how many lives over the years by his actions."

_It's very fucking easy to talk about that when you're not the one being asked to make the sacrifice._ Okay, deep breath. Rationally he accepted what she was saying. The way she said it though made it sound so damned cold.

He shook it off; tried to calm himself. His head was spinning. The whole situation still sounded too crazy. But he _had_ seen Hutchings die. That wasn't open to question. 

Emil had developed a hollow, sinking feeling in his gut. "I presume I'm not being told all this simply to satiate my burning curiosity, correct? So I'm guessing that you now want me to retrieve the situation somehow?" 

A look from face to face confirmed his suspicion. _Bugger._

"Are you volunteering Mr. Ngonge?" Evangeline's lips were twisted in a wry half-smile.

_No I bloody well am not._ The sinking feeling redoubled though. Volunteer or not he knew he had just been lumbered. He wasn't going to be given a choice. "Care to let me know what Hutchings was doing outside that building? And how come you two were so conveniently on the scene so quickly?"

A pause without any response forthcoming. "So you're not going to tell me? Right?"

"We don't know exactly what Hutchings was doing. He never got the chance to report. The last contact we had with him was. . . rather ambiguous."

_So you have two advisors cruising round in a Jag on the off chance of something happening?_ That didn't make any kind of sense, and Emil knew he wasn't being told something. Hell, he probably wasn't being told lots of somethings. No change there then.

"I hope you don't want me to try and infiltrate Charron Corporation in Hutchings' place? That, to be honest, would seem like an exercise doomed to failure."

Evangeline Stridom smiled grimly. "Indeed Mr. Ngonge. I quite agree. No, the time for subterfuge has passed. Now more decisive action is required. What we want you to do is kill Luke Charron."

* * *

Hsu Yi listened carefully to the footsteps ascending the creaky old wooden staircase. A trace of a frown furrowed her brow. These footsteps were not the ones she had been expecting. They belonged to someone light on their feet – fit and athletic. 

Two words that could not be applied to her current client.

She turned away from the grime-encrusted window and stared at the door those footsteps were approaching. _A double cross? Someone sent in his stead to complete the transaction? Perhaps someone unconnected entirely_. A quick glance down at her watch. The appointed hour would arrive in precisely ten seconds. Too much of a coincidence, surely.

Hsu Yi had arrived an hour before the exchange was due to take place, at this derelict office block in Thames Wharf. It was one of the few nearby buildings that had so far escaped being turned into luxury apartments or an art gallery or something, although judging by the building contractor's sign outside that wouldn't remain the case for long. She'd spent the time scoping the place out – checking entry and exit points, and determining the best possible escape routes. It was not that she expected anything to go wrong; just that in her chosen profession paranoia became a way of life.

The door handle turned. The second hand on her watch ticked over the appointed hour. Briefly Hsu Yi wished that she had for once chosen to go armed. But no, guns were a liability. They gave you the option of doing stupid things.

A woman stood in the doorway. Hsu Yi let out an inaudible breath. It was okay.

"Ah. Ms. Wen. You are here already I see. Excellent." A statement of the blindingly obvious. 

Her name was Claudia. That was all Hsu Yi knew. For want of a better description she was her client's 'Personal Assistant'. 

Claudia was a large woman – large in a way that was not a euphemism for fat. Beside her Hsu Yi appeared more of a child than ever. Six foot plus, she was broad through the shoulders and impressively muscular – stronger and fitter than the majority of men at a guess – though still attractive in a cold Valkyrie sort of way. Short ice blond hair was slicked back from a flawlessly imperious face and her lithe, sinewy body was clothed in an expensively tailored black trouser suit. She carried a slim leather briefcase.

Westerners tended to regard the Chinese as inscrutable, Hsu Yi was aware. Claudia though, was inscrutability personified. She didn't recall ever seeing an emotion on that glassy smooth face.

She watched the woman pad towards the centre of the room, trying in vain to read something from her body language. Disquiet began to return. This wasn't what had been arranged.

"Do you have the item?"

Hsu Yi started at the unexpectedness of Claudia's voice, so ingrained had the silence become. "Where is your employer? It was agreed that I would hand it only to him."

Not a flicker. "Do you have the item?" Exactly the same question repeated in exactly the same tone as before. Hsu Yi momentarily fancied that Claudia must be some kind of computer, programmed only to respond to specific inputs.

"Yes. I have the item."

"Excellent." The voice that answered her was male. It came from the corner of the room behind her left shoulder. For a moment Hsu Yi thought she was going to suffer heart failure. She heard those distinctive, dragging footsteps interspersed by the tapping of a cane.

_How? It is impossible._ As she turned to face the source of the voice Hsu Yi could still feel her heart pounding. 

The room had been empty save for herself before Claudia had arrived. She was sure of it. There was no cover to hide in, and the only way inside apart from the single door was through the windows behind her – closed, and in any case two stories off the ground. Even she would have had trouble pulling that trick, let alone a man with one artificial leg. _Impossible._

But here he was, despite how much her brain tried to protest against it.

Her client.

His smile, as always, sent a shudder up her spine. Not because it was a fake or unpleasant smile; quite the reverse in fact. It was just that somewhere inside she didn't believe that anyone could really be quite so warm; so sincere; so comforting and genuine. Others would probably be charmed by it. On the couple of prior occasions she's met him though, she'd found herself wondering what, exactly, was hidden beneath.

"I knew that you wouldn't let me down Hsu Yi." He was positively beaming at her, radiating happiness.

Hsu Yi's gaze fixed on the scar that bisected his right eyebrow. It extended down until it disappeared behind the dark glasses he wore, continuing on the other side for about an inch down his cheek. She had never seen him without those glasses, but if she was a betting woman she'd have wagered a small fortune that he was missing an eye as well as his right leg below the knee. "Indeed, which I assume was the reason you were willing to pay me so much."

The mega-wattage of that smile was cranked a few notches higher. "I do like to think that all those who do good work for me are well rewarded."

Something about the way he said the word 'rewarded' set alarm bells jangling inside her head. She caught herself from taking a step backwards, towards her planned escape route. It was an effort to keep her face impassive.

"Is that it?" He gestured towards the bag she carried. "May I take a look?"

"Of course." She caught herself from adding _Mr. Charron_. She wasn't sure if she was supposed to know his name. It wasn't something he'd mentioned to her. "If I could in turn have a look at the payment I'll be receiving."

Luke Charron snapped his fingers. "Claudia, if you would be so kind?"

Claudia laid the briefcase on a rickety looking table and slid it towards Hsu Yi. In turn Hsu Yi passed the black bag she was carrying across to Luke Charron. As it left her hands she had the uncomfortable feeling that she'd just completed a deal with the devil.

"Feel free to count it if you wish," he told her as she opened the briefcase. "I assure you that it's all there, and then some. An expression of my delight at the speed and efficacy of your work."

Hsu Yi grunted noncommittally. A quick visual estimate showed he was telling the truth – there was probably at least twenty percent more than the agreed upon fee. The alarm bells in her head got a little louder. _Who voluntarily paid more for something than they were asked? _Of course it could just be a sweetener to encourage her to work for him again; a message that Luke Charron treated those who remained loyal to him well. But. . .

"Ah, Megaera, my sweet, grudging love. . ." 

The words, breathed beneath his breath, snapped her attention back to him. He was turning that green-stained figurine over and over in his hands. 

Something about the way he touched it – the way his expression had subtly altered – gave her a distinctly creepy feeling. It hinted at obsession.

After several more seconds he placed the figurine down on the table, opposite the briefcase. "Well, Hsu Yi? Are you happy that all is as agreed and that a final exchange may take place?"

She was about to nod; to say that yes, everything was acceptable. The words froze, stillborn on her lips. 

She saw Claudia reach inside her jacket and pull out a matt-black pistol fitted with a silencer. Everything seemed strangely detached and she couldn't bring herself to react – not even when Claudia levelled the gun directly at her chest.

Four shots, fired in quick succession, no more than muffled _phttts_. Every one of them found its target. Then she was falling. . . falling. . . life fading in a haze of red and black.

"Hsu Yi? Is everything okay? You don't look well." As the vision faded away she heard Luke Charron's voice, seemingly filled with genuine concern. Then everything around her had returned to normal. A profound shudder passed up the length of her spine.

"Hsu Yi?" Luke Charron was leaning closer to her.

She shook her head in an effort to clear it. "My apologies. The English have a saying 'It was like somebody just walked over my grave'. Do you Americans use it too?"

Luke Charron was smiling again. "Yes. It is an expression I know. Well, I profoundly hope that there are no graves in the near future for anyone in this room. . ."

Hsu Yi had tuned out of what he was saying. It had been a glimpse of the near future, she knew with cold inner certainty. A glimpse of what was going to happen to her as soon as she agreed the deal. It had come from the figurine. Crazy. . . but somehow Hsu Yi was sure of it. _You cannot let it fall into Luke Charron's hands_.

". . . I was asking whether you agreed upon the exchange."

Hsu Yi almost missed the words but managed a quick, shaky nod. Then she forced a smile. "Everything looks perfectly acceptable to me Mr. Charron." She realised belatedly she had just used his name. It didn't matter anymore. She had to get out of here now.

"Excellent. I may have use for your supreme talents again."

It was an effort to keep her hands from shaking as she closed the briefcase. "I always enjoy working for such a generous client." To her own ears her voice sounded like it was coming from someone else entirely. She watched as his hand reaching for that stolen figurine again. 

_No. He must not be allowed to! _

Where that sudden conviction came from she couldn't have said, but she responded to it instinctively.

Still holding onto the briefcase full of cash, she rolled the length of the table and snatched the figurine from between Luke Charron's closing fingers. Then, before either he or Claudia could react to what had happened, she turned and sprinted for one of the room's windows.

Part of the hour Hsu Yi had spent prior to their arrival had involved her loosening a particular pane of glass from its frame. As she now hit it, it popped free. Both she and it dropped, into the night and the street below.

* * *

"Well, that was something of a surprise," Luke Charron commented mildly. 

Outwardly he appeared completely calm, unfazed by the unexpected turn of events. He limped across to the now empty window and gazed down at a small figure dwindling rapidly into the distance. Apparently, from the speed she was moving at, the two-storey drop had left her completely uninjured.

After a few seconds of apparent contemplation he turned to look at Claudia, who had moved to stand at his shoulder. "Would you be a dear and fetch the esteemed Ms. Wen back for me?" His smile was broad. "Good. I do so regret what she's just done."

* * *

"Hey, you're never going to guess who this is!" Travis's eager exclamation broke the silence that had fallen inside the Ford Scorpio. He was in the process of searching through the shoulder bag Lara had been carrying. With everything else that had happened she'd forgotten about it until now.

The response from the others in the car was distinctly underwhelming. Lara herself just groaned inwardly. Just what she needed.

"No takers?" There was an eager expression on Travis's brutal looking face, and for once the whiny note was absent from his voice. "A free beer to anyone who gets it."

"Go on then Trav, me old pal." This was the Australian/South African, whose name Lara had learned, was Langer, after no stream of guesses was forthcoming. "Don't keep us all in suspense. Who is this lovely lady we've managed to acquire?"

"Only Lara Croft. That's who." He looked disappointed when no major reaction was forthcoming. "You know. Famous millionairess and archaeologist. They did an article about her in _The Times_ Sunday supplement a couple of months ago. Indiana Jane they called her."

Lara stifled a groan. That was an interview she'd really regretted doing. She'd hated the way it had portrayed her and what she did; made it seem like one big joke. Still, it had given some of her colleagues a good laugh. _Wouldn't have figured Travis for a Times reader,_ she mused. He seemed more of a Daily Star sort of person. _At least he hasn't mentioned. . ._

"The woman who shot Bigfoot. You must've heard of her."

_Sigh_.

Beside her she heard the Englishman, Simon mutter something under his breath. It sounded like a fervent wish that he'd never woken up this morning. She could relate to the sentiment.

"Yep. I've heard of her." Langer opined after a moment's thought. It was the verbal equivalent of a shrug.

Travis, apparently, still wasn't satisfied. "Jeesh. Don't you guys realise what this means?"

"That not only have we managed to kidnap a woman, we've also managed to kidnap a celebrity?" Simon hazarded. "So the police are going to be stirred up like an ants nest that's had boiling water poured on it when they find out she's missing, and there's no fucking way that the One-Legged Man can possibly miss hearing about this. Lomax will go absolutely ape."

"Aper, anyway," Langer put in. "He's already pretty much ape as it is. Is Aper a word do you think?"

"Fuck it!" Travis by now seemed genuinely annoyed. "You know what the problem is with you English, Simon? You're all a bunch of complete and utter cynics. A nation of people who always see the glass as half empty. You're all going to end up disappearing up your own arseholes if you're not careful. A declining nation of bitter and twisted losers. Makes me sick sometimes."

Lara listened with some interest. The edge to her fear had faded and now there were only the occasional nagging spikes. For one thing Lomax was in the other car. For another she could only manage to stay afraid for so long – it didn't come naturally. Now her thoughts were going over more practical matters – like how she was going to get out of this mess in one piece.

"Do I have to spell it out?" Travis went on.

"Perhaps you do Travis. Perhaps you do." There was a weary, resigned note to Simon's reply.

"She's a fucking millionaire! Hello? Doesn't that mean anything to you?" Travis shook his head, apparently bemoaning the fact that the world had chosen to surround him with idiots. "I'll bet she could be worth more to us than any half-assed job for the One-Legged Man. Way more. Just imagine the possibilities."

Lara saw immediately what Travis was doing. He was trying to make out that his decision to throw her in the back of the van was, in actual fact, inspired rather than cretinously stupid. From the look of it he'd already managed to convince himself.

"I am," Simon stated flatly.

Travis either didn't hear or just plain ignored the lack of enthusiasm. "Her father, Lord Hens. . . Halshing. . . Something bloody stupid beginning with 'H' anyway, is absolutely rolling in it. I'm betting he'd pay an absolutely fortune to get his beautiful, beloved daughter back in one piece."

"Don't count on it." It was out before Lara could stop it. Simon had removed the gag from her mouth a while back, but so far she hadn't said anything, preferring to give the impression she was icily aloof from it all.

Both Simon and Travis turned to look at her, and despite the fact he was driving she could sense Langer's eyes on her in the rear-view mirror.

"My father and I are not exactly on good terms." She pushed down the discomfiture at suddenly being the centre of attention. "In fact if you actually read that article in _the Times_ you'll know that he disowned me." A flash of old pain at that memory. "How much he would be willing to pay to get me back is therefore open to debate."

Travis was already shaking his head, denying. "No. No. That makes it even better. Don't you see?"

Lara raised an eyebrow. Some people when they got hold of an idea were like dogs with a bone. They refused to let go.

"The parental guilt thing." He smiled. It was an 'I'm already counting the money' kind of smile. "You see, the way I figure it is that your old man's got to be feeling pretty guilty somewhere inside about disowning his own daughter. Flesh and blood ties run thick, no matter what, right? I'm betting that this guilt will make him more, not less likely to pay a ransom. Stands to reason, doesn't it?"

_Oh Christ. Not only does he read the Times he does cod psychology too. Is there no end to this man's talents?_

"We are not kidnappers Travis." Exasperation leaked from Simon's words. Lara got the impression that he wanted to either scream in frustration, or hit Travis, or quite possibly both.

"No? Oh I forgot, we're mercenaries and far too good to be involved in anything tawdry like kidnapping. We just stick to honourable activities like armed robbery and shooting other people for money."

"Kidnapping is a mugs game." Langer opined. "Not something I want to get involved in."

"For fucks sake!"

"Hear me out Travis. Some places in the world kidnapping works. Sardinia and parts of Greece for example it's practically a respectable trade. Other places – and take note Travis, Britain is definitely among them – it's just idiotic. The payouts simply don't justify the risks of getting caught."

Travis sighed. "Well unless it's escaped your notice Langer, we have _already_ kidnapped her. We might as well make some goddamned money from the situation! It's not as if we're a bunch of bungling amateurs, is it?"

"Bottom line Travis." From the way that Simon spoke Lara got the impression that every ounce of patience had been drained from him. "Lomax will not go for it. So whatever the merits of your idea, it's dead. Okay?"

"You can read Lomax's mind can you Simon?"

"Well, ask him if you like. But don't say I didn't warn you."

"When was it that Lomax became god exactly?" Travis sounded furious. Angry silence settled in again.

That had taken place several hours ago. Their eventual destination had turned out to be a farmhouse somewhere in Kent, very secluded with no other dwellings in sight. Simon had guided her through the building to a spare bedroom at the back of the house. Aside from a bed there were no other furnishings – not even a carpet or curtains. Everything was shrouded in a thick layer of dust.

"Okay. I'm going to take your handcuffs off for a moment. Only temporarily I'm afraid." He told her. "I suppose you could try to use it as an opportunity to escape. I might be thinking that in your position I know. I'd advise against it though.

"First off I've got extensive – and I mean extensive – military unarmed combat training. You look like a strong, fit woman Ms. Croft, and from what I know of you, you're very capable. But even if you can somehow put me down you're not going to be able to do it quickly and quietly enough to avoid alerting everybody else in the house. Second, even if you get out of the house it's a long run to safety. A long run against half a dozen armed, highly dangerous and unpleasant men in territory that they know and you don't. Third, although I wouldn't blame you for making the attempt, Lomax definitely would. I won't be able to stop him killing you a second time. Understand?"

"I understand."

She stood motionless as he moved out of view behind her. Curiously, despite the fact that he was obviously a hardened criminal, and as Travis had put it 'a mercenary' who would willingly 'shoot people for money' she felt relative safe around him. Not something she would have said about any of the others in this gang, particularly Lomax or Travis. 

_Don't let a veneer of politeness blind you_, part of her warned. _This is still a dangerous man._

She felt the handcuffs come loose. A blessed relief to he chafed wrists.

"Sit down on the bed please, Ms. Croft."

There were no sheets or quilt. Only a bare, dusty old mattress. After a moment's hesitation she obeyed.

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to handcuff you to the bedhead." He told her. "This place wasn't set up with the expectation of having guests. Hopefully it should at least be more comfortable than having your wrists bound behind your back."

Lara acquiesced quietly. His assessment of her chances of overpowering him and getting past the others was, she suspected, unfortunately accurate. Then, without saying anything else, he left her on her own.

Alone, seconds ticked by like minutes. The room was stiflingly hot and the dust in the air just made it worse. Intermittently she could hear voices raised in argument, mainly Travis, Lomax and Simon, though with an occasional comment from Hicks's extremely distinctive artificial voice. Mostly what they were saying eluded her, but she did manage to pick out her own name being mentioned on several occasions.

Lara spent about an hour examining the handcuff and bedhead to see if she could manage to find a way of getting it loose. Unfortunately the bedhead was made of brass rather than wood, and an experimental tug suggested that the welds holding it together would prove stronger than the flesh on her wrists. 

Her next idea was one of the pins she'd used to hold her hair up in a bun. A quick check showed her that they'd all fallen out though. Every single one. _Not fair_, part of her wanted to protest_. Surely this contravenes the rules about heroines in jeopardy_. She managed a fractional smile at the thought. Never mind the actual practicalities of picking a handcuff lock with a hairpin. . .

In the end she just lay back and attempted to relax, staring up at the ceiling and practising a variety of breathing exercises and meditation routines.

At one point Simon returned, carrying a pitcher of water and an empty glass. He didn't say anything and the expression on his face was grim. Lara simply watched as he poured some water into the glass and put both it and the pitcher down beside the bed within her reach, then turned and walked out again without so much as looking at her. Things were obviously not going well for him.

After a moment Lara picked up the glass. The sight of it brought the growing thirst she'd been trying to ignore starkly into focus. She took a sip from it. _Iced_. Surprisingly considerate. When she'd drunk what she wanted she lay back and resumed meditating.

Gradually afternoon faded into evening, the light softening and the edge of the heat fading somewhat. _Would anyone have noticed her absence yet? Would anyone be looking for her?_

It was Winston's afternoon off, and in any case he would still assume she was at the museum. Even if she were gone for several days he probably wouldn't get unduly worried. She'd gone off somewhere or other on the spur of the moment on numerous occasions in the past. 

_What about Emil then?_ Well, presuming he wasn't still chasing after that man he'd probably assume that she'd gone off in huff at him running out on her. _Bloody men_. Again she doubted he'd start to become worried by her absence for at least a couple of days. Maybe not even then.

No, her best hope was that someone had noticed her being bundled into the back of that van. The security guard for instance. The police would certainly have taken a large-scale interest in the explosion and robbery, and if they knew a hostage was taken that interest would be even more urgent. By now, she guessed, they would have found the burnt out van. There, though the problems started. How did they get from the van to this farmhouse in Kent? Not quickly, Lara was forced to conclude. Not unless they got amazingly lucky, or these men had done something incredibly stupid to leave a trail. 

_So, looks like I'm on my own._

Evening ticked on into night, light fading to leave her in darkness. Somewhere outside she could hear an owl. Occasionally voices from inside the farmhouse reached her, though now they seemed more measured, the arguments resolved.

She was almost dozing off when the door finally opened again. Simon of course – the others, thankfully seemed content to ignore her. She blinked against the brightness of the light he turned on, the naked bulb flickering and humming.

"Thought you might want some food." He said simply. "Nothing fancy I'm afraid. Beans on toast was the best I could manage to drum up. Not what you're used to I'm sure."

Lara accepted the plate silently, doing nothing to disabuse him of that notion. When left to survive off her own cooking she tended to eat beans on toast as often than not. It was a personal favourite of hers.

As she looked up at him she blinked. Still the black woollen hat, those yellow tinted glasses and that odd looking waxed moustache, but now there was something new. "You're aware that you seem to have a rat on your shoulder I presume?"

It was white with pink eyes, appearing almost as large as a small cat. And from the look of it, it was perfectly content with its current perch. Its nose twitched at Lara.

"Ah, yes Captain Harrison." A fractional smile touched Simon's lips and he reached up to stoke the rat behind the ears. The rat seemed to revel in the attention it was getting.

"Captain Harrison?" Lara failed to keep the incredulity out of her voice.

"Named after my commanding officer in the Gulf," He explained.

"Ah. I see" That explanation just made it seem even more ludicrously surreal though. "I'm sure the Captain would be touched by the tribute," she said carefully.

Simon chuckled. "Or something. I tend to think that the poor rat got the worst end of that particular deal."

"You know, I could do this a whole lot easier if I had both hands free," Lara told him after she finished the first mouthful of the beans on toast.

"Yes, I'm sure you could. Never mind, you're a resourceful woman. You'll manage." He turned to leave.

"Wait."

Simon paused in the middle of turning the door handle, glancing back at Lara.. There was a cautious, questioning look in his eyes. "What is it?"

"Would you stay with my while I eat?"

"Why?"

Lara shrugged. "I just thought it would be nice to have someone to talk to."

He frowned and there was a hint of suspicion in his expression. "If you're thinking of trying anything. . ."

"What, like knocking you unconscious with this plate, taking the handcuff keys from your body then doing a runner into the night before anyone notices? You mean that sort of thing?"

"Well put like that, I guess it does sound a little unlikely." After a moment's pause he turned from the door, moving a rickety looking chair out from the corner of the room and sitting on it. Lara watched him as she ate several more mouthfuls of the beans. He looked distinctly ill at ease, although the rat on his shoulder appeared quite comfortable.

"So, you served in the Gulf then?" Lara said at length. The chair beneath him looked much too small, possibly designed for a child. His heavyset bulk dwarfed it. "Royal Marines?" She hazarded.

A tiny grimace, which she almost missed. "Special Air Service."

_Bloody hell_. Lara let out a low whistle. The rat started washing its face with its paws.

"You're wondering how I came to sink to this, aren't you? I mean serving Queen and country in the finest elite fighting force on the planet, to armed robbery and kidnapping with the hard-of-thinking like Travis."

Lara shrugged. "A lot of years. A lot of water passed under the bridge. We all change. I'm hardly in a position to judge you for it."

Simon grunted. "Sometimes, I admit, I really do wonder about it." He shook his head.

"So is Simon your first or last name?" A change of subject was probably in order.

"First." A slight smile, as if he recognised what she was doing. "I know the others all use their last names, but Bulford-North is a little on the unwieldy side, so I'm just Simon."

_Simon Bulford-North._

Lara concentrated on eating. She found herself wondering why she'd asked Simon to stay. Certainly there was no plan. It had just been a spur of the moment thing that had slipped out before she'd thought about it. Maybe, she rationalised, making herself seem more human to her captors would make them less inclined to simply shoot her. There was a brief recollection of the look in Lomax's eyes as he held the gun on her. _Then again, perhaps I was telling the straight truth. I do just want some company._

"You know, I recognised who you were before Travis said anything about it."

"Oh?" That piqued Lara's curiosity. She looked up from her plate.

"Not right away of course. Difficult to recognise anybody who's lying face down in the back of a van. Something twigged just before Lomax was going to shoot you."

"Ah." She paused. "Was that anything to do with why you intervened?"

He shook is head. "I did it for exactly the reasons I told Lomax. Murdering innocent people isn't what I signed up for. When it comes to it, it isn't what any of us signed up for. Not even Lomax. Though he's never going to admit it, I think he was relieved."

"Well, thank you anyway. I think I prefer my head without bullet perforations."

He grunted – seemed embarrassed by even that oblique praise. For a time silence fell and Lara concentrated on finishing off the beans on toast.

"I've read a couple of your books, you know."

"Really?" _Oh God._ For some reason Lara always felt ever so slightly uncomfortable when people brought that subject up. "What did you think?" Her tone was carefully bland.

He looked down a moment at the bare floorboards before meeting her gaze again. "Honestly?"

"Please."

"Can't say I liked them much. Sorry, but there it is."

_Should I feel offended?_ She didn't strangely enough. It was actually quite refreshing. Usually people just said how much they'd enjoyed them, but she'd never been wholly convinced. It seemed like a politeness thing, like commenting on how much you liked someone's new hairstyle, even if you secretly thought it was absolutely ghastly. "What didn't you like, if I can ask?"

He looked even more embarrassed. "You're not offended are you?"

_Lets see I've been kidnapped, narrowly escaped getting shot dead, and now I'm sitting handcuffed to a bed in a farmhouse somewhere in Kent. And you're worried that you not liking my books might cause offence._ Part of her wanted to laugh at the absurdity, but she simply shook her head.

"Well I'm not saying they weren't well written, or anything like that. It's just that, for me there's one important thing that all travel writing has got to have, which yours just didn't. Authenticity. You made a lot of what you wrote up, didn't you?"

Lara simply raised an eyebrow; held his gaze.

"Well, didn't you? I mean, er. . . some of it. That couldn't have really happened, right?"

She wondered briefly what his opinion would be if she'd written all that had actually happened in her career, rather than just the bits that seemed vaguely believable. She supposed that she was guilty of what he was saying – being economical with the truth. Just not quite in the way that he supposed.

"To be honest," she said at length, "I never really had much in the way of literary aspirations. I'm afraid I was always in it for the money. Not the art."

"Money? I thought you were a millionaire."

Lara made a face. "Like I told Travis, my father disowned me. Cut off all my allowances. There was a time a few years back now when my finances got pretty tight, and my writing was about the only thing that allowed me to keep travelling. It's changed a bit now, but I keep on doing it, on and off." She shrugged.

"So how does one manage to get disowned exactly? I'm having difficulty imaging it at the moment."

A slightly sad half-smile crossed Lara's face. "You wouldn't if you knew me better. I can be a difficult person sometimes. My father and I didn't see to eye on a number of issues. My career choice and his plans for my wedding being foremost among them. Things got a little heated between us." She stopped – really didn't have any desire to go into it any further with someone who was, however he acted, one of her kidnappers.

"So, no literary pretensions yourself Simon? I thought it was becoming something of a tradition."

A wry chuckle. "You're referring to Mr. McNab. Bravo Two Zero and that crap, I take it? No, I think I'll spare the world my pathetic ramblings thank you." He paused. "I knew him in passing you did know? Overbearing asshole with an inflated opinion of himself."

Lara watched the rat – Captain Harrison – as it suddenly decided to crawl across the back of Simon's bull-neck and switch to his other shoulder. It's long, naked pink tail twitched back and forth, and from the way it looked at her she would swear it was laughing.

"You'll pardon me for asking, but why a rat?"

"You're not one of these people who hate rats are you?" Simon asked, idly reaching up to stroke Captain Harrison.

Lara shrugged. "I don't have much of an opinion one way or the other to be honest." Although she had in the past encountered – and disposed of – some pretty unpleasant specimens of that particular species. Ones that made even Captain Harrison seem small.

"People have a lot of unfounded prejudices about rats. They're actually very intelligent animals. Much more so than either dogs or cats. They're affectionate, sociable creatures and contrary to popular belief there also pretty hygienic."

"But still, not most peoples first choice as a pet."

"Mine neither," Simon admitted slightly ruefully. I'd never have bought him on my own. "Captain Harrison here was originally a joke. I'd just split up with my long-term girlfriend a few years back. A messy, unpleasant sort of business. One of my friends thought I needed a replacement, so I didn't feel lonely. We've been together longer than I was with my girlfriend now, and as an added bonus the rat doesn't yell and throw things at me."

_A touching story._

"You finished that?" Simon nodded towards her now empty plate.

At that moment the bedroom door opened. Lomax. His gaze swept quickly across Lara without ever meeting her eyes. She felt he her jaw click shut, and the words that had been on her lips died.

"So this is where you've got to Simon. What are you doing?" His voice was perceptibly cold.

"Making sure our guest gets fed. No one else is going to do it."

Lomax grunted. "Well you're needed. Now." He turned and left, the door slamming behind him.

Simon stood up and took her plate. "Don't mind him. He's been under a lot of stress recently. He'd really not that bad once you get to know him."

"I'm sure." _As people who've nearly killed me go, he's probably just great._

Then she was left alone again.

* * *

"What the hell are you doing?" Emil somewhat belatedly noticed that his newly acquired partner was in the process of pouring something on the windowsills of his apartment. She'd already completed the first one and had moved on to the second.

Some kind of crystalline white powder, he noticed as he rushed across the room. "Hey, I've only just painted those things." _Well to be absolutely accurate, paid someone else to paint them. But same difference._

She looked up at him, expression bland. Her name was Joanna Ironheart and she was Evangeline Stridom's protégé. Also, in Emil's opinion, positive proof that a sense of humour bypass operation was now a realistic surgical procedure. "Relax. This will not in any way damage your precious paint." Then she continued pouring.

"What is it?" He demanded. The urge to scream or bang his head repeatedly against the window was strong. _What have I done to deserve this?_

"Salt."

"Salt?"

"That is correct, yes. I found it in a cupboard in your kitchen. Surprisingly well stocked for a single man."

"Okay." Emil tried, not quite successfully, to remain calm. "One question springs to mind. Why the. . ." He caught himself. "Why are you pouring salt along all my windowsills?"

"Protection." Her tone contained mild surprise, as if it should have been obvious, even to a small child.

"Protection?"

"You know that you have a habit of repeating what I say right after I've said it? Please don't. I find it annoying."

Emil turned away from her so she couldn't see the snarl that passed across his face. He could feel his back teeth grinding together; took a deep breath and tried to relax. "Okay, this might well be an idiotic question Ms. Ironheart, but please humour me. What sort of protection does salt from my kitchen give when poured across my windowsills?"

"Joanna. Since we are going to be working together you should call me Joanna."

"Okay then. Joanna." He looked at her. She was, he supposed, in a purely physical sense, an extremely attractive woman; tall, slim athletic looking with short-cropped dark hair; a flawlessly serene looking face. Something about her appearance made Emil think she had at least a touch of Native American blood in her. It was just that what he'd so far seen of her personality drove him completely up the wall. _Cloned in Evangeline Stridom's image_, he thought unkindly. _Though she'd probably see that as the highest form of compliment_.

"To answer your question, the protection is against Luke Charron. Potentially you exposed yourself to his gaze this afternoon. This should keep it away for now."

_Ah yes. Luke Charron. The supposed black magician_.

The man they were meant to kill.

To start with Emil had been outraged by the suggestion. He was not anyone's pet assassin. He would not kill to order, just because it was convenient for his superiors. What did they think he was?

Then he had stopped and thought about it.

When it came to it, what he was being ordered to do now was no different to what he had done numerous times in the past. It was merely the phrasing that was different. Always before he had 'countered threats', 'dealt with situations' or 'solved problems'. Euphemisms that more often than not meant 'kill this person'.

It rankled though. With the layers of nicety stripped away it made him feel dirty and used – ultimately no different to those he worked against.

_I have to get out of this while I still can. _A vow he'd made and broken several times in the past. Now though he was more serious about it. _While I still have something left I can call a soul_.

So would he kill Luke Charron? 

_I'll deal with it as it comes_. _If I have to kill him I'll kill him. If I don't I won't._

Assassin. Whore. But refusing was hardly a better alternative. _Evangeline. Fucking bitch._

Joanna Ironheart, he thought slightly enviously, didn't appear to be plagued by any kind of similar doubts. _Oh to be young and full of self-confidence and zeal again_.

"So salt works does it? That throwing a pinch of it over your shoulder stuff isn't just a bunch of superstitious old claptrap?"

She sniffed. He got the distinct impression that she thought he should already know all this. He also got the feeling that she didn't have a very high opinion of him, and given a choice in the matter, would have preferred not to be working with him. The feeling was mutual. "As I understand it the elementals he is able to control cannot pass across it voluntarily. It should prevent him from eavesdropping on us – or taking any other more drastic action."

_Elementals?_ A slight shudder. _Were those – for example – strange, invisible things that buzzed around a man's head just before he started vomiting up blood?_

Joanna had moved on to the third window. _If I want any seasoning in my food it looks like I'm going to have to order take-away_. "Is it just salt then? I'm, not going to run into cloves of garlic hanging from my lampshades am I?"

A sigh of ill-concealed exasperation. "First, that's vampires. Second, it's the garlic flowers, not the cloves that are effective. Third, you don't seem to be taking this altogether seriously. I'd have thought that seeing a man die this afternoon would have been enough to focus your mind."

He glared at her. "Believe me, I'm taking _that_ perfectly seriously. It's just that this 'magic' business is, how shall I put it, slightly beyond the range of my experience. I must have missed the magic 101 lessons everyone else seems to have taken."

"Ah, so you're a sceptic. You don't believe this is really possible eh? You think we're all deluded – that there has to be another more rational explanation for all this?" She stood facing him, hands on hips.

"Well I don't know if I'd put it quite like that. . ." Though to be honest it _was_ fairly close. "It's just that I've learned to be cautious about accepting something as fact just because someone tells me it's so."

For a time they just stared at each other. 

"Okay then, how does Luke Charron do this magic? It might help me accept it if I could at least get a handle on that. I presume there's more to it than waving your hands about and mouthing a few magic words."

Joanna looked away and muttered something. "Blood."

"Blood?" He echoed. "Okay, okay. Sorry."

"Blood, violence and suffering." She looked back at him, her expression bleak. "If you've ever been anywhere where something truly horrendous has occurred, and you have the slightest degree of sensitivity, you will feel it. A miasma hanging on the air. A tainted residue that won't go away, no matter what you do to get rid of it. That is the power that Luke Charron taps into to work his 'magic'."

Emil was quiet. He had been a policeman once. Had witnessed firsthand several crime scenes that were utterly appalling – seen things he would never be able to forget. He had to admit that there was something to what Joanna said – a sense of horror that seemed to cling to the air – and those places were never quite the same again_. _

But that was down to human reaction to knowing what had happened, surely? In a strange way people wanted to think that human suffering left an imprint behind – that it wasn't irrelevant to the world around them and had absolutely no effect. To those who didn't know what had occurred there, these places were the same as anywhere else. _Right?_

"You are not convinced." It was a statement rather than a question. She turned away from him again, resuming with the salt pouring. It startled him slightly when she spoke again. "Do you know about the events that took place at the Penitentiary New Mexico, nearly nineteen years ago now?"

Emil recollected something vaguely. "Riots right? I remember hearing something about this. Some of the prisoners set up execution squads and murdered a large number of their fellow inmates. Mainly sex offenders and those they labelled snitches." He wondered what the hell this had to do with Luke Charron and black magic. It seemed an odd change of subject.

"In essence. Though that doesn't even begin to describe it." Joanna paused as she moved onto the last window. He sensed a kind of reticence – tightly reined in emotion. "One of the prison guards I met summed it up best. 'For one night hell was a place on Earth, and that place was right here'."

Emil opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it.

"You see, all the 'at risk' prisoners at penitentiary New Mexico – as you say that's mainly sex offenders and those that have informed to get reduced sentences, but also a few that used to be involved in law enforcement, plus those who for one reason or other just wouldn't survive in the general prison populace – were kept in a separate cellblock, isolated from their fellow inmates. A focal point for their hatred."

Joanna stopped pouring the salt, still only half done, and stared out of the window. She appeared to having difficulty going on, and Emil got the impression that what she was telling him was somehow very personal to her.

"Once the riots started everyone knew that that particular cellblock was going to become a target, so it was completely locked down. Sealed tight. That should have been that. The prisoners inside should have been safe, sealed in their cells and untouchable until control of the situation was regained."

"But obviously they weren't."

She shook her head. "No. By a nasty quirk of fate there were building contractors working in another section of the prison at the time of the riots. They'd packed up work for the day and gone home, leaving their tools on site."

Emil felt a clenching sensation in his gut. He had a good idea what happened next.

"The tools left behind included blow-torches, sledgehammers, electric saws, a pneumatic drill. Around about twenty men, all of them with grudges against those in the 'at risk' block, took those tools and decided to get themselves a little payback. 

"They broke into the cellblock with the pneumatic drill. Then they used use the blowtorches to open up the cells one at a time. The prisoners inside were dragged out and tortured to death in the most horrendous ways you could possibly imagine. Things were done that night you wouldn't believe a person was capable of doing to a fellow human being. It went on and on, for over eight hours in total, the death squad moving systematically and remorselessly from cell to cell until every single one of the original inmates was dead." Joanna's voice wavered fractionally. "Those in the last cells had to wait those eight hours, trapped with no possibility of escape, listening to what was happening to their fellow prisoners – listening to the death squad's taunts – knowing what was going to happen to them all too soon."

Emil didn't say anything. He could hear the tightly controlled anger and emotion there. He still didn't see how this had anything to do with the subject in hand, but sensed it would be extremely tactless to comment.

"One of the victims was a boy of seventeen with the mental age of an eleven year old. He was serving a six-month sentence for shoplifting, and had been relocated to the 'at risk' block because the week previously he'd been gang-raped in the prison showers."

_Someone she knew?_ He wondered. _A relative perhaps?_

"There is good circumstantial evidence that Luke Charron instigated all of this, simply so he could use the 'energies' that were unleashed by the violence and suffering to perform some kind of ritual."

"Hang on a second. . ."

She cut him off. "I know what you're going to say. It's sounds crazy I know. People are quite capable of doing highly unpleasant things to other people without any intervention from outside powers. It happens all the time. 

"This is different though." Joanna took a deep breath.

"Three years ago I interviewed one of the men who was part of the death squad that night. He was dying of Hodgkinson's lymphoma, and he didn't have anything to lose by telling me what he knew. I was expecting to meet a monster, but what I found was a pathetic, broken man. Okay maybe that was down to his illness, but maybe not. 

"He told me that he went along with the death squad that night to kill a man who'd testified against him at his trial – got him lumbered with a sentence of 376 years for drugs related offences. Nothing else. Halfway along though, when they were in the middle of breaking into the cellblock, he says he felt something change. That it was like someone else took over, and from then on it was as if he was watching everything that happened through someone else's eyes – able to see what he was doing but not alter it in any way. While he was talking to me he broke down and cried – a hardened, brutal criminal of forty years."

Apparently she caught the look of doubt in his eyes. "Yes, you could put it down to a dying man trying to rationalise his guilt, but. . . I did some checking, and you know what I found? Of those twenty odd men who were suspected of taking part in the death squad that night five have committed suicide. Another nine have suffered profound mental breakdowns and are now permanently institutionalised. Three more, when released from prison, flipped out completely and went on rampages before being shot dead by police. Tell me that those are normal, explainable statistics."

He couldn't. But he also hadn't heard anything convinced about black magic either.

Emil turned away from her and stalked into the kitchen, pouring himself a glass of water. Not because he wanted a drink. Just because he was uncomfortable standing around doing nothing in Joanna's presence. He felt like an intruder in his own flat.

When he returned Joanna had apparently finished with the salt, and was in the process of unpacking. First thing out of the bag she'd been carrying was a monstrous looking handgun mounted with an optical sight. He could glimpse other weaponry below it. "You're aware that we have gun laws in this country."

"Yes. Ridiculous nannyish things. Shows that your government obviously doesn't trust the general populace. How are you supposed to defend yourself?"

"At least we don't have children settling arguments at school by shooting each other."

"That was supposed to be a joke."

"Ah." He hadn't heard any change of tone or anything else to indicate.

"Probably not a very good joke I'll admit. I'm told I'm not very good at that sort of thing." There was a hint of a smile when she looked round at him, though it vanished quickly.

He hid his surprise. Maybe he'd misjudged her slightly. Beneath that exterior there might just be a human being lurking after all. "So we're just going to go in and shoot him. Simple as that?"

"Simple as that," she agreed. He detected a hollow note to her voice.

"You know that this has the potential of blowing up the faces of our little group? This isn't some nobody who won't be missed. If Luke Charron is murdered or disappears it will be investigated relentlessly, and I think our influence will only cover it up so far."

"Which is why we've got to do it perfectly." Joanna's voice was flat. "Seriously, I don't think anyone's under any illusions about this. We all know what happens if it goes wrong. But the situation gives us no choice."

_Yeah, since I managed to kill Hutchings. To all intents of purposes._ He walked over to the window. "Since we've know about him for so long, why have we never tried to kill him before?"

"As long as Hutchings was still alive it was convenient to have one of them we _knew_ about. Someone who we could, to an extent, keep an eye on." There was something in the way she spoke that suggested to Emil that if it had been entirely down to her Luke Charron would have stopped breathing long ago. "Besides, who says we haven't tried to kill him."

"Oh?"

"On one occasion an Israeli sniper – one of the very best in the world at that particular job – calmly and precisely shot the man standing right next to him through the head. On another, a bomb linked to the ignition of his car failed to go off until he had driven twenty miles, parked, and walked a safe distance away from it."

_Shit_. So they were proposing to shoot a man capable of dodging bullets and car bombs then. _I _am_ going to fucking retire. I swear it._

Joanna was in the process of counting out ammo boxes and appeared to have forgotten about him. Muttering beneath his breath, he went back into the kitchen, picking up the phone and rapidly dialling the number of Lara Croft's Surrey home. 

"Come on. Come on. Pick up," he muttered beneath his breath as he listened to the ringing. 

Sure enough, once again, the voice mail kicked in after the fourth ring. Lara Croft's cool, business-like upper-class English accent asking him to please leave a message after the tone; she'd get back to him as soon as she was able to. Strangely sexy, but not what he wanted to hear. He hung up. He'd already left one message, appropriately grovelling in tone.

She was probably furious with him. 

_No shit Sherlock. Lets see, you run out on her in the middle of a date leaving her stranded. Based upon your previous experiences with women, how exactly do you think she's feeling about you just now?_

_Damn_. He'd be lucky if she wanted to talk to him ever again.

Well at least she was well out of this crap. That was some consolation.

* * *

It was with great reluctance that Hsu Yi dumped the briefcase full of money. On its own it would be enough to set her up for life. She would never have to work again unless she wanted to. But. . .

She wouldn't live long enough to have a choice about working again if she kept it. If she kept the money Luke Charron _would_ trace it, and she would be dead. She knew this with absolute conviction.

_What the hell have you just done?_

The answer: something so utterly stupid that it was probably going to destroy her. She had reneged on a deal. Worse, she had stolen from one of her clients. In one brief moment of madness she had ruined the reputation that it taken her years to construct.

_If I ring Mr. Charron and tell him where he can retrieve his money_. . . No, it was already far, far too late for that. Unless she was also prepared to give up the figurine. . .

_No!_

The strength of the inner voice startled her – almost made her think it didn't come from within herself at all. Its vehemence didn't seem quite rational.

Already the strength of the vision she'd experienced was fading, and she was beginning to doubt its veracity. Neither Luke Charron nor Claudia had made any kind of overt threat against her. Everything had been going smoothly in fact. Why the hell had she run? 

_Because if you hadn't you'd be dead by now!_

But would she? As it was she had stolen a lot of money from a potentially very dangerous man, and he wasn't likely to be pleased about it.

She passed a waste bin standing on the pavement and shoved the briefcase unceremoniously inside. Someone was going to have a very lucky morning when they found it. Then she redoubled her pace.

_I should dump this blasted statue too._ _Throw the damned thing into the Thames. _That was probably why the Croft woman had kept it hidden away; it was cursed to bring whoever touched it ill luck. 

_Why the hell did I have to go and take the statue as well?_ She just couldn't fathom it. If she'd only left it in Luke Charron's hands everything would have been okay, the deal completed. Sure, she'd have left in a somewhat unconventional manner, but put that down to overdramatisation. She wouldn't be in the horrible situation she was now.

_Leaving it in his possession would have been indefensible._

_Oh yes, how exactly? _She demanded of that inner voice. _It's not as if it's key parts for the triggering mechanism of a nuclear device. Or Hanta virus cultures. Or anything else dangerous for that matter. It's just a bloody antique, and a pretty sad looking one at that._

But no, she couldn't just throw it away. Not now. At the moment it was the only bargaining chip she had left.

* * *

Lara didn't stir from her sleep until a meaty hand clamped down across her mouth.

Then her eyes snapped open instantly. She became aware of a huge weight pinning her to the mattress, making it difficult to breathe let alone move. The sound of protest she instinctively made was muffled to inaudibility. Desperately she started to twist: to try and throw the smothering weight off.

Something hit her in the side of the head with stunning force and for a moment she went limp. "Ah, ah, girly. None of that."

_Travis_. 

The sound of blood rushing in her ears and the way her head seemed to gyrate made it difficult to focus. His face was a few inches above hers and she could smell beer on his breath. Finally it sunk in what was happening.

As her heart started to race with tightly controlled fear she tried to bite the hand covering her mouth. A second powerful blow to the side of her skull sent her spinning down to the border realms of consciousness.

"Fucking stuck up English cow! Try anything like that again and I'll snap you in half. Understand me?" Distantly she could feel a hand pawing aggressively at her right breast, heavy fingers gouging. She tried to struggle but her body would only respond feebly.

"Ah, so you like that do you? Thought you would."

_No I bloody well don't!_ She could hear the leering grin in his words without needing to see it on his face.

"You know, you've caused me a shitload of trouble? Made me look bad in front of the others. I should hate you for that. But hey, I'm a reasonable sort of guy. I'm not the sort to hold a grudge. Besides, you're about to make it all up to me. And then some."

_He's going to rape me_. The realisation finally penetrated through the clouds inside her head and enabled her to focus. She drove her knee up as forcefully as she could manage towards his groin, bringing her free hand round and clawing at his face.

Her knee only managed to connect with the upper portion of his thigh and his hand caught her wrist before it reached its target. He shook her violently, brutally strong. "What did I tell you about struggling?"

Lara said nothing, hiding a flinch as the bones of her wrist ground together. He punched her in the stomach this time, knocking the wind from her body.

"Today has not been a good day, and I _am_ going to have my due." The words came out somewhere between a hiss and a growl. The hand not occupied with trying to crush her wrist started to grope its way down her body, its touch making her flesh crawl. "You know what we got after all that fucking trouble? After nearly getting blown up by Hicks's incompetence? One pathetic, mouldy old statue." A pause. "And you into the bargain. Well not all bad then, I guess." He chuckled unpleasantly.

"You know what Lara? Do you mind if I call you Lara? No. Good. I think we should be on first name terms, given how intimate we're going to get." Another chuckle. 

His questing hand pushed beneath the hem of her skirt, forcing it upwards. Desperately she clamped her thighs together, worms of fear crawling unchecked through her guts. She couldn't break his grip. He was too strong, and two-hundred and fifty odd pounds of mostly muscle crushing down on top of her didn't allow her any kind of leverage. Panic bubbled dangerously close to the surface. 

"I've always wanted to fuck a celebrity. Okay, so in my fantasies it was more a movie actress or a pop star – I always thought that Jennifer Lopez was nice. Real good looking. But you're pretty famous. People have heard of you anyways. So I figure hey, you'll do. And damn, you're hot looking. Every bit as good Jennifer. Hell, even your breasts are real – and much better than Jennifer's are. The way I figure, you might as well try to enjoy it. It's goin' to be the last piece of action you're going to see."

Muffled laughter. "Yeah, that's right. Lomax has decided you've got to go, see. A bit of a shame, but there you have it. He's goin' to make that English poof, Simon, do it for interrupting him. Heck I'm sure your gonna just love this. Having a real man for once in your life. Even if it is the last time ever. Damn I'm gonna love getting a piece of snooty upperclass English ass. . ."

Lara scarcely heard this rambling discourse. All her focus was on the hand that had now finished bunching her skirt up around her waist and was clawing clumsily at her underwear. Belatedly she realised he was no longer covering her mouth. There were other people in the house. . . 

She cried out as loudly as her lungs would allow. 

With other people that reaction would have been immediate and instinctive, but to Lara it didn't come naturally. She'd always been self-reliant, and in her experience making noise in an emergency usually made things worse rather than better.

"You fucking bitch. . ." Travis released his hold on her wrist and tried to cut off the racket.

Big mistake. Seeing one slight chink of an opportunity she struck at it as hard and fast as she could manage. Travis let out a high-pitched shriek as a finger gouged claw-like into his eye-socket. The shriek changed to a low, agonised groan as her knee connected solidly with his groin.

Suddenly the crushing weight was lifting off her as Travis scrabbled desperately backwards. "Aagh! You bitch. You complete fucking bitch! My eye! Aagh! You've put my fucking eye out. I'm going to fucking kill you. Make you hurt so fucking bad. . . ooph"

Lara's foot caught him hard in the midriff, doubling him up. She yanked against the handcuff holding her to the bed, her heart pounding out of control with surging fear and adrenaline. Of course it didn't give. 

_Damn. Damn. Damn._ She had to put him down, and quickly. Like this, as soon as he forgot about his eye, she was as good as helpless against him, nowhere to run and no way of evading him. With his greater strength and weight he could simply tear her apart. Perhaps literally.

Her next kick caught Travis on the hip, but it probably did more damage to her foot than to him.

"You're going to regret the day you ever. . ."

Before Lara found out precisely what she was going to regret the bedroom flew open with a crash and the light came on, it's sudden brilliance dazzling. Travis was slammed backwards so hard that it made the wall shake, flakes of plaster tumbling to the bare floorboards in a snow-like cascade.

"What the hell is going on here?" Simon, looking like a bizarre but very bad-tempered pit bull.

"She's fucking gouged my eye out!" Travis was bent over, clutching his face.

Simon's gaze slowly took in the scene. Lara's skirt was still pushed up around her waist and as his eyes touched her she felt a burning sense of shame, hastening to brush it down and cover herself.

"Good for her." He said at length. "Now get out before I do something you'll very much regret." There was a quiet certainty in his voice more intimidating than any shouting or posturing would have been

"O-oh yeah?" Travis quickly covered up the slight stutter. "You go ahead and try you fucking faggot. I'll kick your ass so hard it comes out your pug-ugly face."

"Well, in that case Travis it seems like we have a date. Shall we step outside? I wouldn't want to get bloodstains everywhere."

"I-I-I. . . Don't think I bloody wouldn't. I'd take you any day of the week. Jesus Christ, my fucking eye!" He departed with the air of a bully who knows he's over matched and wants nothing to do with it, but is also desperately trying to save face.

When he was gone, the door slamming behind his back, Simon turned his gaze back to Lara. "You okay?"

She could feel herself shaking – had to keep a tight grip on herself to keep it under control. What she _wanted_ to do was curl up into a ball and for the whole world to just go away and leave her alone. She couldn't remember feeling this helpless; this shaken; this demeaned. 

"I've probably had better days." To her own ears her voice seemed to come from a million miles away, belonging to a completely different person. It contained no trace of what she was feeling inside.

Simon grunted. "I'd better stay for now I think. As soon as Travis realises you haven't in actual fact gouged his eyeball out he'll likely be back, looking to pick up where he left off."

"I didn't gouge his eye out? Pity." Lara's voice was edged with acid. "You could just take these handcuffs off and let me handle it. I wouldn't want to disturb your beauty sleep or anything."

He held her gaze with his – saw the sudden hardness that had formed there. "You know that Travis, with his pride hurt and looking for revenge, can be a very dangerous man."

She didn't so much as blink, never mind look away.

"Okay, look at it another way. Travis is Lomax's cousin. It's the only reason I can fathom for him putting up with the whiny good for nothing bastard. But you know what they say. Blood is thicker than water. In this case much, much thicker." His fractional smile died. "My point is though, if you kill Travis then Lomax will kill you. And believe me, Lomax is an entirely different kettle of fish to his idiot cousin."

Lara had already worked that one out. This time though, she did look away. "Is what Travis told me true?"

"I don't know. What did Travis tell you?"

She looked back at him so she could gauge his reaction to her words. "That Lomax has decided I'm going to have to die anyway. And you're the one who's going to kill me."

Simon sighed. "Lomax sometimes says things in the heat of the moment he doesn't mean. He's not a bad man, despite what you may have seen of him so far. Give him time to cool down so he's thinking a bit more calmly. He'll change his mind."

"And if he doesn't?"

"Well I'm not going to kill you whatever he says. If that ends our friendship, so be it. But I'm not a murderer."

Somehow it wasn't that much of a comfort.

"Do you want me to turn the light off?"

"No. I don't think I'm going to be doing any sleeping just right now."

"In that case, do you mind if I do some work."

"Be my guest." Lara's tone was indifferent.

A few moments later he returned with a thick sheaf of papers, sat down and began to work his way through them, occasionally scribbling something on one or other sheet with a pen. After a few minutes of this Lara found herself watching him with some curiosity. As far as she'd been aware paperwork wasn't a major part of an armed robber's life. Not that she'd actually met many to find out one way or another of course.

Simon seemed to feel her gaze upon him and looked up. "If you're wondering, I act as our jolly little group's accountant. I deal with our finances, contracts and anything of legal nature that might come up."

"Ah." 

For a time silence fell, except for, occasionally, the sound of Simon's pen scrawling across paper. Lara tried to lie back on the bed and relax. To calm herself, and slow her breathing and heart rate, which were still a fraction too fast. It was difficult. The remnants of fear, shame and helplessness were hard to put aside. 

__

Come on girl, get a hold of yourself. You've faced down worse than lowlife scum like Travis. Much, much worse and many times. It shouldn't be affecting you like this. 

But the truth was, it had affected her. For one of the few times in her life she'd felt totally helpless. If Simon hadn't arrived when he had done, she didn't like to think what would have happened. 

She felt beaten up inside, her confidence and self-esteem battered and bruised. But she also felt angry. Very, very angry. It was better than the other feelings so she grasped hold of it.

"This One-Legged Man I've heard you people mention several times. Who is he?" Lara suddenly had a desire to know what the hell this was all about.

Simon looked up at her. For a moment he didn't answer, but then seemed to come to the conclusion that it couldn't hurt. "The man who's employing us for this current job. An American, I think. He's called the One-Legged Man on account of. . ."

"Having only one leg?" Lara hazarded. "Yes very informative. Thank you."

Simon shrugged. "None of us know much about him, except Lomax, who has worked for him on a couple of occasions before I gather. And possibly Hicks," he added after a moment's thought. "Neither of them are much for sharing, except from what I've gleaned he's a real bogeyman figure. Nastiest of the nasty and ruthless as hell. If you cross him then you're as good as dead. Simple as that. But the rewards for doing your job well are high. Very high." He scratched his nose.

"It was Langer who stuck him with the One-Legged Man moniker. After the one-armed man from _the Fugitive _I think. You know, the one who really murdered Richard Kimble's wife? It seemed kind of appropriate, so we've all taken to calling him that. I doubt he'd appreciate hearing it to his face, but there you go. If I were you I'd forget all about him and hope he never gets to hear about you."

As far as Lara was concerned he still sounded very much like her first guess: some kind of underworld Godfather figure. She had come into contact with that type before on a couple of occasions, and she had always been the only one to walk away. 

_And if necessary it will be that way again. _Though at the moment her only goal was to get out of the current situation alive. 

_Okay, try another tack._ "I'm slightly curious as to what that place was you robbed. It looked like just another set of offices."

Again he paused before responding. "Why do you want to know?"

She shrugged. "As I said, just curious. It's one of my flaws. Anyone who knows me will tell you. I guess it doesn't really matter. It's not as though I can actually do anything with the information, is it?"

"A security firm," He said at length. "They hold a large number of safety deposit boxes belonging to a number of very exclusive clients."

_Interesting_. "Hence the explosion? You didn't have a key?"

He grunted. "That was weird. Extremely bloody weird. When it comes to controlled explosions Hicks is about as good at it as it gets. Normally I'd trust him to blow a wart off the end of my nose." He shook his head. "Heck I know a bit about explosives myself, and I know the amount Hicks used simply couldn't have caused that size of an explosion. We were damned lucky we weren't all killed. Like he says there must have been something else in one of those other boxes."

_And what you got for your troubles was, to quote Travis _'one pathetic, mouldy old statue'_._ Lara drew in a breath. _Forget about it. It's none of your concern_. _What you've got to worry about is getting out of this mess in one piece. What they stole, why they stole it and who they stole it for matters precisely nothing. You don't care_.

But what she'd told Simon had been the truth. Curiosity drove her at the most inappropriate and inopportune moments. It had gotten her into all kinds of trouble in the past. _But not this time. Not this time, do you hear?_

More silence. The memories of Travis's pawing hands – of the helplessness she'd felt – crept inexorably back, finding chinks in the armour she'd wrapped herself no matter how much she tried to push them aside. 

"So," she said eventually when the quiet had grown unbearable. "Your group don't strike me as the average bunch of armed robbers."

"And what would you expect a bunch armed robbers to be like?" There was a trace of humour showing in his eyes. "To be fair we're much worse than that. Mercenaries, as Travis said, is the most accurate term to describe us. Not a particularly honourable profession." 

She saw a brief flash emotion cross his face. Regret perhaps? It was quickly gone. "Though I lost any claims to honour a long time ago. We specialise in retrieving items for people by whatever means necessary. It's rarely anything as clean and simple as today's bit of armed robbery. And even that managed to turn into a right mess."

_Me_, she thought, though he didn't say it directly. _Well I certainly didn't want any of this_. Lunch with Emil seemed like it had happened in a different lifetime. "How did you manage to get involved? No offence, but you don't seem to fit with the likes of Travis and Lomax."

He chuckled. "You mean what's a nice bloke like me doing in a job like this?"

"Something like that."

"For starters I'm not a nice bloke. Don't let the polite exterior fool you. As Travis might put it, that's just my inherent anal retentive Englishness showing through."

In Lara's experience mere politeness didn't usually stretch to saving a person twice, once from being shot and once from being raped.

"To answer your question though, I met Lomax shortly after the gulf war. He was a veteran like me, and at the time we thought a lot alike. We were two very disillusioned people you could say. Disillusioned with our respective governments and disillusioned with the world in general. We became friends quickly. I like to think we still are friends, though Lomax might have a different interpretation if you asked him right now."

Lara sincerely doubted whether Lomax would answer any question she put to him.

"Anyway, we agreed to start out in business together – put our respective skills to the cause of making some money rather than serving our countries. If that sounds contemptible – well, maybe it is. But back then I was strongly of the feeling that my country had taken more from me than it had ever deserved in the first place. Hicks came into the venture with Lomax, and the others joined over time. Strange as it may seem to you in your current position, we're almost considered respectable as far as our particular line of work goes."

"So here you are."

"Here I am," he agreed.

Suddenly, as he turned a page, a paperclip shot off the papers Simon was working through, landing about a foot away from the bed. Lara felt a sudden surge of excitement. _If she could get it before he noticed_. . . She started to stretch out a bare foot.

But no, he'd seen. He tutted to himself beneath his breath, getting up and dropping to his knees beside the bed to retrieve it. If he noticed Lara's quickly aborted movement towards it, he gave no sign. 

As he was standing up again something dropped from his pocket; something small and shiny.

Lara waited for him to turn around and pick it up. He didn't though – didn't appear to have even noticed. She hadn't been able to tell precisely what the object had been, but. . . Quick as she could she stretched out and snagged the object between her toes.

A key. A very small key, like you would use for a pair of handcuffs. Suddenly her heart was pounding. _Surely he couldn't have failed to notice. Surely he couldn't be so careless._ She drew he foot back on to the bed, the key still clutched between her toes.

Simon sat down again and resumed going through the papers. His expression was completely bland. 

Lara felt sure what she'd just done must have been written all over her in the equivalent of foot high letters. He gave absolutely no indication of suspicion though, and as the minutes ticked by she gradually began to relax a little.

Now all she needed to do was get rid of him for a few minutes.

* * *

Luke Charron stood in front of the window in his lavish penthouse office and practised smiling.

Outward appearances, he had learned from a young age, were of paramount importance. As long as you showed the world a convincing face then it would let you get away with murder. Sometimes quite literally.

As a child he had quickly come to the conclusion that allowing his true feelings to show was a bad thing. It got him into trouble, and those around him were alienated by it. They got suspicious and mistrustful, or just plain angry. So he had learned to put on the mask. 

A convincing smile. A few charming words. Those same people who had earlier chastised him were totally won over. _What a pleasant, charming young man. What a good example. I wish my son was as polite and well behaved_. Nothing inside had to change one iota, and as long as your actions were circumspect, no one would ever look any deeper.

When it came to it most people were idiots.

And so, every day, alone he practised – a ritual that had become ingrained. Not just manipulating the corners of his mouth to turn upward. That was the smallest and least significant part. No, a true smile must consume the entire face. It must shine from the eyes. Though that last, had of late, since the accident, been difficult.

Inside he boiled.

Someone was laughing at him – a hard yet feminine voice, filled with mirth at his discomfiture. At last he could tolerate it no more, the smile dying as he span round. "Laugh now while you can, bitch. You won't be laughing for much longer."

There was no one else in the room with him. On a shelf there was a figurine – a female figure of green-stained metal – similar, but not quite identical to the one that had, just an hour earlier, slipped through his fingers. It appeared to be this that he was addressing.

Swiftly he reasserted control, that beneficent smile reappearing. The contrast of the transformation was quite unnerving. He limped across the room.

Pain flared from the stump of his amputated leg where it rubbed against his prosthetic limb. He had been on his feet a lot today – far more than his doctors would have advised. _But what do they know? Self-serving incompetents the lot of them._

Pain. Luke Charron had been in near constant pain since the car crash: sharp fiery agony, or dull, constant aching that refused to go away. Always somewhere close, waiting to dig its claws in.

Most would have seen it as an affliction. Not him though. Pain, like blood, was power. Even if that pain was his own.

Since the accident – and the unceasing pain – his powers had increased two-fold. What had first seemed a curse had in fact proved to be a blessing. He had taken it as a sign; a gift from his dark mistress. 

_Now was the time_.

There were other unexpected benefits to losing a leg too. People trusted a man with one leg. They tended to treat him with sympathy. _This is a man who has suffered_, he could see them thinking. _This is not a man that I need fear_. To some that would grate, but not Luke Charron. Every advantage was there to be exploited to the full. Bargaining suddenly became a whole lot easier – after all, who wanted to deny anything to a disabled man?

_Every business leader should have a limb amputated. They'd reap the benefits_. He laughed aloud. It was a bubbling, infectious laugh filled with warmth and good humour. Laughter was almost as important as a smile.

The eye was harder to reconcile. It meant he could no longer shoot a pistol accurately – something that he had previously found relaxing. Still, he had plenty of other people who were more than capable of doing any required shooting for him. Worse though, it reduced the impact of his smile. So much of a smile was in the eyes, and unfortunately people tended to find a glass eye unnerving.

_Megaera, you will not run from me_. He picked up the figurine from the shelf, turning it over in his hands. _Your sister will soon be joining us, my dear._

No response. The figurine was a dead object in his hands, so light that it had to be hollow. He knew it – what it embodied anyway – heard him though.

After a few seconds he placed the figurine back down. _The blood of Uranus, spilled to earth when his son, Chronus, castrated him._ _The blood of the divine. Power beyond imagining_. 

It would belong to him.

A knock on the door.

"Enter Claudia." Nothing mystical about that knowledge – he knew of only one person who would disturb him at this hour. Besides, he recognised the knock. "You have news?"

She walked in a brisk no nonsense manner across the office and laid a black briefcase down on a desk. "I recovered the money, Luke. She dumped it in a bin. Unfortunately our treacherous thief was not to be found. I have diverted all available manpower to hunt her down. . . but she is likely to prove elusive."

_Luke_. He was a progressive employer, on first name terms with all his staff. _One big, happy family_. He smiled, "Is the money all there?"

"Down to the last bank note."

"A pity." Externally he was so calm he could have been discussing tomorrow's weather forecast. Inside he raged. "It would have been so much easier if she'd given in to temptation." 

If a person held something that belonged to him then he would be able track them down. No matter where they tried to run. 

And do other things as well.

"I feel that I should apologise." As ever Claudia showed no emotion, either in face or voice.

Luke Charron raised one eyebrow. "How so?"

"It was I who recommended Ms. Wen to you. From all that I was able to find out about her she was supposed to be supremely reliable. Quite simply the best available for hire. Obviously I was mistaken."

"Do not trouble yourself. No blame attaches to you. I approved the selection because I believed it to be perfectly correct." He waved the matter away. If he had attached blame to Claudia, he would already be in need of a new PA. "And the manner in which she performed her task suggests her abilities were not overstated. I do not believe it was her original intention to betray me."

"Perhaps. But she seems to have betrayed us nevertheless."

"Hmmh. Megaera spoke to her," He mused aloud. "I heard her voice quite distinctly. I had not expected her to be able to do that. She should, by all reckoning, have still been dormant. Perhaps I should speak with the esteemed Ms. Croft after all, and ask her what exactly she did to the statue whilst it was in her possession."

"I thought you had decided that Ms. Croft should be left out of this if at all possible?" Claudia reminded.

"Yes, yes. But circumstances do change, and we should not restrict ourselves unnecessarily. No matter, it is probably not important just at the moment." Another smile. "But matters are, unfortunately, complicated. Hsu Yi did not choose to betray us entirely of her own volition, and possibly she is not acting under her own volition even now. I think I may need to take more drastic action to prevent the situation escalating."

Claudia's expression remained as impassive as ever. "We do have some slightly better news however. I was contacted by Mr. Lomax, who claims to have the remaining artefact. I have arranged for a pick-up to be made tomorrow."

"Ah. I know I can always count on Mr. Lomax."

"He made no mention of Hutchings, incidentally."

"Really? Well I won't read too much into that. I strongly suspect that he has no idea what happened to Hutchings, which is why he remained silent on the matter. Doesn't like to appear ignorant does our Mr. Lomax. A pity about Hutchings really. It is always useful to have a spy you _know_ about in your midst. Now I'll have to be on the alert for spies I don't know about."

If Claudia felt any surprise at the offhand revelation that Hutchings was a traitor she didn't let it show.

Luke Charron pursed his lips, apparently deep in thought. "I think that I'll need you to fetch me a vessel Claudia. Could you do that for me? I would be most appreciative."

She inclined her head. This cryptically worded request was something she had fulfilled on numerous occasions in the past. "A Mr. Rogers from our IT department is working late at the moment. He is a loner with no immediate family or close friends. His department head is due to fire him in the next week for downloading pornography off the Internet during working hours."

"Excellent, excellent. Yes, Mr. Rogers sounds perfect for what I have in mind." Luke Charron turned and limped back across the office to the window, gazing out at the myriad of lights that made up London's nighttime skyline – deceptively beautiful and peaceful. "Please bring him up here for a little chat."

* * *

"Why does this require two of us?" The question had been nagging at Emil for some time now.

Whatever way he tried to figure it, it only seemed to make what they were doing more risky – doubled the chances of getting caught. Okay, so halfway up the side of an office block, after midnight in a window-cleaning rig probably wasn't the best time to mention it, but still. . .

Joanna's face was concealed beneath a black silk mask, but he could tell enough of her feelings from her voice. "Because it is harder for Luke Charron to cloud the minds of two distinct individuals than it is for him to do just one."

_Fine. Really glad I asked._

The rig reached the top of the building and stopped. Emil could feel it swaying subtly back and forth, tugged by the breeze that had sprung up. Boards creaked quietly beneath his feet and the noise of traffic seemed to come from a very long way off indeed. _Good job I'm not afraid of heights. _A glance down at the street, sixteen stories below. _Though if I spend much more time hanging around up here I could definitely start developing a strong dislike of them._

He boosted himself up onto the roof after Joanna. There were a thousand doubts, circling like vultures inside his head. They hadn't prepared enough. They should put this off at least a couple more days. It was all happening too fast. What the hell would Luke Charron be doing in his office after midnight? This was going to blow up spectacularly in their faces. . . 

_Oh shut up and get on with it_. As he was sure Joanna wouldn't hesitate in telling him.

They moved swiftly across the rooftop, Joanna in the lead. Around them ventilation units hummed quietly to themselves. Moonlight from the clear sky, along with all the myriad lights of the city around them, made it seem much too bright for comfort – much too exposed.

At the top of one of the two main elevator shafts they stopped. Joanna wasted no time or words in prising open a panel surrounded by yellow and black hazard markers, revealing a nest of wires beneath. She produced a palm-top computer from a pocket on her belt – a rather more advanced model than they sold at Dixon's – plus a pair of wire cutters, then went to work.

Emil watched her for a moment – calm efficiency in action – then got on with his own job. A maintenance cover lifted free with a tortured squeal, revealing a shaft of pitch darkness below. Quickly he secured a nylon rope in place and began to lower it into the elevator shaft. 

The thought of descending into that black maw made his stomach knot. But it _should_ be okay. The computer Joanna was attaching _should_ allow them to control the lift. Theoretically. There were a lot of variables. Climbing down with a still operational lift though. . . _Stop bloody worrying._

"Okay?"

Emil nodded. He flicked on the nightvision goggles he was wearing and the world around him turned to shades of green. The effect always disturbed him slightly. Everything became somehow unreal and detached, as if he was playing a computer game rather than participating directly in events. Then, with a deep breath, he dropped into the hole.

There was a horrible moment when the inherent claustrophobia he'd never quite successfully managed to overcome kicked in. The green tainted walls appeared to bend inwards and he felt a sudden tightness around his chest that made it impossible to breathe. . . Gasping, he pushed the feeling aside and continued down the rope. Nothing he hadn't experienced before.

Around him were a forest of girders, counterweights and braided steel cables as thick as his wrist. Everything stank of grease and dust. Below his dangling feet was nothing but gaping darkness. He concentrated fixedly on keeping going at a steady rate. Above him he was dimly aware of Joanna starting down after him.

A set of counterweights beside him clanked loudly. Suddenly one of the cables next to him was moving, the sound of machinery whirring to life.

_Shit._

The counterweights slid down smoothly past him. Which, logically, meant that a lift was coming up. Up this shaft he was climbing down.

Cursing beneath his breath he redoubled the pace of his descent. A glance down showed nothing but blackness still, but that cable seemed to be moving awfully quickly. . .

He drew level with the first set of lift doors, his heart thudding as he swung across to it. At first, as he inserted his fingers into the crack down the middle and heaved, nothing happened. Then the doors opened all in a rush and he tumbled through, falling onto his hands and knees on the carpeted floor beyond.

The lift stopped its ascent, safely several floors below them.

As he was pulling himself to his feet Joanna calmly swung through the opening and landed beside him. Unhurriedly she unhitched herself from the rope. Emil couldn't see her expression as she looked at him, but he could _tell_ what it was. One eyebrow raised in a kind of offhand curiosity, as if to ask what all the fuss was about.

"I thought," he said through gritted teeth. "You said 'okay'."

A shrug. "The computer wasn't working. I judged there was little in the way of risk and it wasn't worth wasting time on it. We were never in any danger."

Emil turned away, indulging inside his head a momentary fantasy about throwing her down the open lift shaft. _Never any bloody danger?_

The reception area the lift shaft emerged onto was dark and deserted, as to be expected at this hour. There was no sound or other sign of anyone present, but obviously – from the lift – there was at least one other person in the building. Emil pulled the handgun he was carrying – a .45 calibre Heckler & Koch Mark 23 pistol with in built suppressor. In the corner of his vision he could see Joanna doing the same.

In silence they started down the corridor leading towards Luke Charron's suite of offices. Joanna ghosted into the lead. Although it had never been discussed, she seemed to have implicitly assumed that she was in charge. Emil hadn't so far felt like arguing about it.

Apparently, as well as offices, Luke Charron had living quarters up ahead. Something that struck Emil as taking the concept of living for your work just a little too far.

As the door at the end of the corridor neared Emil started to feel the tension growing exponentially with each forward step. Part of it stemmed from the fact that, when he reached it, he was going to be required to kill a man he had never met before in cold blood.

But there was something else too.

A nagging prickling sensation. An ominous sense of foreboding that threatened to blossom into full-blown terror – like the claustrophobia he'd experienced inside the lift shaft, only far, far worse.

Suddenly the idea that they were facing a real life black magician no longer felt quite so ludicrous as before. It is all very well laughing at nightmares in the daylight, but when you actually have to face them in the darkness. . . Then it is suddenly very different.

Then they were there. Standing in front of the ogre's lair. No turning back.

Joanna cautiously reached out with a gloved hand and tried the handle. Locked. Emil felt obscurely gratified to see a trace of tension in her posture – a slight flaw in her poise.

As she went to work on the lock with a set of skeleton keys Emil turned to face back down the corridor, covering her against any surprise visitors.

Seconds accumulated into minutes. 

_What the hell is she messing about at?_ He could feel his palms sweating, the nervousness and tension mounting even further. Finally there was an almost inaudible click and the doors swung open.

His heart leapt to his throat and he levelled his gun. Beyond the door a wall of blackness seemed to bulge outwards. . .

Anticlimax. Nothing happened.

The wall of blackness dissipated, no more than a figment of his overactive imagination. It felt a bit like steeling yourself to storm the gates of hell, only to find everyone was out on a daytrip when you finally plucked up the courage to do so.

He let out the deep breath he'd unconsciously been holding. Ahead of him Joanna darted forward in a low crouch. He followed cautiously, gun sweeping to cover her. 

The office was larger than his apartment, covering two floors with a balcony level around three sides and several doors leading off it. A single vast window giving a spectacular view of the city dominated the fourth wall. 

Silhouetted in front of this stood a solitary figure. A tall, slender man who leant on a walking stick.

Emil froze in his tracks. 

Something wasn't right. The man was standing with his back to them, completely motionless, giving no sign that he was aware of their entry. Yet he couldn't have failed to notice. Unless he had lost his hearing as well as a leg and an eye. 

And probably not even then.

As he saw Joanna aim her gun at the back of the man's head a strange scent tickled at Emil's nostrils. Some kind of herbal incense, burnt to cover up. . . something far less pleasant. Suddenly he realised one of the things that was so wrong about the figure in front of him. It wasn't breathing.

"No!" He started to call to Joanna.

Too late. She pulled the trigger at about the 'N'. 

A perfect shot. There was a quiet, insignificant sounding _phttt_ and the back of the man's head seemed to disintegrate. An arc of blood and brain tissue spurted across the window and he collapsed in an ungainly heap, like a puppet with his strings cut.

_Fuck. Fuck. Fuck_.

Finally hearing his shout, Joanna turned to look at him.

"It's the wrong fucking man!" He hissed at her, sensing the silent question. Able to move again as time resumed normal operation, he hurried across to the fallen figure's side.

The back of its skull was gone. Blood was spreading out across the deep pile carpet in a pattern that resembled a psychologist's inkblot test. Whatever the hell the gun Joanna carried was, it obviously packed one hell of a punch. Never had Emil seen anyone quite so thoroughly dead.

He reached out a hand to touch the corpse's shoulder. It flopped over, onto its back like a beached fish. 

"Jesus Christ!" 

Emil scrambled back from the body in shock. He could feel himself hyperventilating, adrenaline pumping hard through his veins. No way had a single bullet done _that_.

Joanna leant across the body to get a better look at it. His initial reaction was to scream at her to get back, but he caught it, gradually getting a grip on himself. Part of him marvelled at how cool and detached she was, faced with such a horror story of wrecked human flesh.

"That's not Luke Charron I take it?"

"No." Her voice was flat. "Sadly not. This is what he calls a vessel – a channelling point used to focus powerful magicks."

_A channelling point?_ To Emil it looked like the man had been half eaten by piranhas. The worst thing was that from the look of it, he'd still been alive when that happened.

A nasty thought occurred to him. Luke Charron could still be here, now waiting for them. Watching them. 

He turned away from Joanna and the mutilated corpse, his gaze quickly scanning the balcony level and the closed doors leading off it. There was no sign of anybody home, but that didn't necessarily mean anything. He headed quickly for the stairs.

_Not like I'm trying to put as much distance between myself and that. . . thing as I can. Not at all._

"It looks like he was attempting a summoning," Joanna was saying, icily calm. "Attracting and binding elementals to do his bidding."

_Elementals._ That word again. "You mean like the things that supposedly killed Hutchings?" He paused halfway up the stairs, glancing quickly back.

She shook her head. "No. From the look of things these are much worse. Capable of stripping flesh from the bone. Really nasty, powerful, hungry ones. He obviously wants something quite badly to take such a risk."

Emil grunted; was about to continue up the stairs.

"There's always a danger with. . .Ugh." Whatever Joanna was going to say was cut off as, without warning, the corpse's hand shot out, fingers closing tightly round her throat.

She didn't appear to be able to break the grip, straining violently, trying to prise the fingers free as they dug remorselessly into her flesh. Her face began to turn slowly purple.

_Hell_. Not pausing to think about what he was seeing, Emil started back towards her. 

The corpse's back arched violently, in the throes of a powerful convulsion. Suddenly twin beams of hellish red luminance shot from its eye sockets at the ceiling, a horrendous screeching, hissing sound emerging from it. It sounded like a pressure cooker on the point of exploding. The remaining flesh clothing the thing started to dissolve, rising from it in a cloud of reddish vapour.

Joanna's struggles grew weaker as the vapour enveloped her. The fingers kept on gouging into her throat and nothing she did weakened their grip in the slightest. She remembered the gun at her waist; tried to reach for it. . . Strange perfume filled her head, making it difficult to concentrate or co-ordinate. Consciousness began to ebb.

Emil sprinted forwards. The clouds of vapour were so thick now that Joanna was nothing more than an indistinct, weakly struggling form at its heart. More and more shafts of infernal radiance burst from the corpse with every passing instant, and the vapour began to glow, becoming painful to look at. He wasn't going to get to her in time. . .

_Phttt._ The bullet struck the corpse's elbow joint. Joanna's vision faded in a sea of redness. She forced herself to squeeze off a second shot, though she could scarcely feel the gun in her hands, then she pulled backwards with all the strength left to her. 

Something gave with a sickening wet tearing sound. Suddenly Joanna was staggering backwards, gargling, wretching noises coming from her throat. Strong arms caught her as her body gave up and collapsed. Consciousness went.

Emil dragged her back from the glowing cloud, muscles straining with urgency. The mass of vapour was blindingly bright now and heat was pouring off it, furnace-like in its intensity. The corpse at its heart was invisible – perhaps even disintegrated entirely. The pitch of the screeching sound had risen almost beyond the range of his hearing.

He had to get her away from it. Hell, he had to get _himself_ away from it.

With a surge of effort he lifted Joanna's limp form up, over his shoulder. Then he began to run, as fast as he could manage with his burden.

There was a surge of incandescent brightness at the heart of the glowing cloud. It pulsed outwards, expanding rapidly, getting brighter and brighter. Hotter and hotter. Emil felt a blast of scalding wind hit his back, a thunderous wailing roar filling his ears. . .

The explosion ripped right through the office with devastating force. The wall of glass shattered into thousands of razor sharp fragments, falling to the streets below in a deadly, glittering cascade. The brilliant flash of bloody red light could be seen for miles.

* * *

Sitting in the back of a silver BMW 7-series being driven through the London streets by Claudia, Luke Charron smiled broadly.

In his minds eye he saw the explosion that ripped through his office subside into billowing clouds of black smoke and the occasional flickering tongue of orange flame. Very impressive – all the energies of a tortured death concentrated and focused in a single incredibly violent direction. More spectacular than he could have imagined. It was not something he had attempted before, but on the evidence of this he would definitely be trying it again.

He chuckled: a kid who'd just discovered a new toy. So much for the two would be assassins.

Strange how luck turned out. What you thought at the time to be incredibly bad fortune later turning out to be blinding good luck. And of course vice-versa.

Take today. If Hsu Yi hadn't stolen Megaera from his grasp he wouldn't have been forced to call upon the _Hrizu _to hunt her down. And if he hadn't called upon them, he wouldn't have been granted that vision. And therefore he wouldn't have known anything about the assassination attempt. So in a strange way Hsu Yi could be said to have saved his life.

A delicious irony he couldn't help but appreciate. He'd have to thank her. Or what was left of her, once the _Hrizu_ had finished with her.

The chuckle bubbled over into full-scale laughter.

* * *

Lara inserted the key into the lock of the handcuffs and turned. There was a soft click, and they fell open. A brief surge of exultation followed, which she quickly fought down. This was only the first, and by far the simplest step to getting free. Still, it felt good to be rid of the things.

She found herself holding her breath – waiting for the door to burst open and Simon to say _ha-ha, caught you_. Irrational. Nobody could have heard that small noise from outside the room. But whatever she told herself, she couldn't quite escape the paranoid notion that Simon knew she had the key. That this was all some kind of test or trick.

A deep breath. She forced herself to move.

Outside the sky was definitely brightening along the eastern horizon, and the first notes of birdsong were starting up, ready to serenade the approaching dawn. A glance at her watch showed it was getting on for 4:00am. She felt a spike of urgency. Not much time at all

Simon had been difficult to get rid of. He'd shown a remarkable ability to ignore a hint.

Lara hesitated a moment over whether to take her shoes. In the end she bent and picked them up, despite the fact that they were horrendously impractical. She didn't put them on. For the moment she was better off barefoot – faster and above all quieter.

Then, holding her breath, she turned the door handle.

She half expected to come face to face with Simon, waiting silently in the hallway – watching for her to make a move. Or worse, Travis, out for revenge and looking to pick up where he'd left off earlier.

To her vast relief there was no one there. _Of course there bloody isn't_. _Stop being so jumpy_.

She crept along the hall, carefully testing each step for creaking floorboards or anything else that might give her away. Everything around was washed out in darkness and shadows and she could only pick the faintest silhouettes of her surroundings. Everyday objects took on strangely ominous proportions

Through a slightly ajar door she heard the sound of someone snoring. She didn't pause to find out who.

A door at the end of the hall squealed alarmingly as she started to open it. Lara froze, heart thudding. No one instantly sprang from his room to demand what was going on though, and she forced herself calm. When adrenaline was flowing sounds seemed much louder and intrusive than they actually were, she reminded herself.

Steeling herself, she opened the door quickly. _After all, I'm still handcuffed to the bed._ _Supposedly. _Anyone hearing the door would probably just assume it was one of his companions, perhaps going to relieve himself. If, on the other hand, she'd tried to open it slowly the drawn out sound might make a listener suspicious. They might come and see exactly who was trying to sneak about at this hour.

To her night-adjusted eyes the living room was positively bright by comparison with the hall. She paused to quickly check of all of the chairs and other deep pools of shadow, where someone could, conceivably be lurking – waiting.

Nobody. Strangely it just made the creeping sense of paranoia worse.

Her gaze happened across a low coffee table and stopped. A green holdall. Exactly the same as the one she'd seen Hicks carrying after the raid. Exactly the same bag in fact. She stared at it.

_What the hell are you doing?_ Without making a conscious decision to do so she found herself crossing the room towards it. 

_No Lara, don't even think about it!_

Ignoring that inner protesting voice, feeling almost compelled, she picked up the bag.

There was something inside it, definitely. It was too heavy to be empty. Whatever it was though, was quite light and certainly rather small. Whether it was what had been stolen – _one pathetic, mouldy old statue_ – she couldn't tell. She started to unzip the bag.

_Dammit. This is insane._ Lara stopped with the zip halfway open. _What you should be doing is concentrating on getting out of here as fast as you can. Not messing around with bags full of stolen property._

She did the zip up again. _Thank you_.

Before she could put it down something else lying on the table caught her eye. A set of car keys. They belonged to the Vauxhall Vectra. After a moment's internal debate she scooped them up. It would make getting away much easier if she drove.

_Now put the bag down and get out of here._

Lara hesitated.

_If you take the bag they'll come after you. They'll have to_. _If you leave it they won't – it wouldn't be worth their while._

Very true. But something made her reluctant to let go of it. Call it an urge. That same strange compulsion that had made her pick it up in the first place. _It might be something important,_ she told herself.

It might also get her killed. And it was certainly going to get her into a lot of trouble – even more than it had already at any rate. Inside though, her mind was made up, in defiance of all logic and what she knew to be sensible. 

_Call it a public service. Returning stolen property._

That was a lie, and she knew it.

Holdall still in hand, Lara quit dithering and moved. It would be just great if she was caught standing around debating the matter with herself. Just perfect.

Out the front door without looking back. Strange, but deciding to take the bag seemed to give her back a measure of the self-confidence and decisiveness that the day's events had done so much to erode.

Half the sky was now a brighter shade of blue and dawn was obviously only a short time away. Although at the moment the temperature was still relatively cool it was apparent that it was going to be another scorchingly hot day.

Lara hurried across to the parked Vectra, ignoring the mild discomfort of sharp gravel beneath the soles of her feet. Open the door quickly; the holdall thrown onto the front passenger seat; then start the engine. That was sure to attract the attention of someone back in the farmhouse, but with luck it was now too late. She pulled away, forcing herself to take it nice and easy. No sense in doing anything stupid that could possibly risk a stall.

A last glance back, via the rear-view mirror. Something jolted inside her chest. Although she couldn't be certain, she thought she saw a figure standing in one of the ground floor windows. A figure that, perhaps, wore glasses and had a moustache, with something resting on his shoulder. Simply standing calmly by and watching. 

Then she was too far away and it was impossible to tell whether it was anything more than a figment of her imagination.

* * *

Hsu Yi ran for her life. Perhaps she also ran for her soul.

What it was she ran from she didn't know. Except that it scared her more than anything she'd previously encountered in her life. And she'd encountered some pretty scary things.

_Luke Charron_. It had come from him, whatever it was. Something sent by that grinning devil-man to take back the figurine she'd snatched from him. Gnawing certainty filled her, and she came back to how he had seemed to appear out of nowhere at their meeting. _What the hell was he?_

It had come for her at Clapham Common station. 

She'd been walking across the deserted platform as the sky brightened visibly overhead. A sense had been growing within her for the past few minutes that she was being followed. That something malevolent was stalking her. She had glanced repeatedly over her shoulder, always convinced that she would see someone there, but there had never been anything except empty streets.

_Paranoid_. She was letting her anxiety over what had happened to her this night play tricks on her imagination.

Then there had been a noise, like the rustling of a strong gust of wind. Except that the air was almost totally still.

Spinning round, her heart thudding wildly, she'd glimpsed a distortion halfway down the platform: a blurring pattern in the air resembling heat haze, yet clearly not. It had seemed to cackle at her with a thousand distinct yet inaudible voices. A feeling of hunger – of lust – projected towards her, so strong it had felt like a palpable, physical presence. 

Then, whatever it was, the distortion had surged directly at her.

At that moment the feeling of terror had been bowel loosening. Unreasoning panic froze her to the spot.

As the distortion rolled over them a flock of pigeons roosting in the rafters were startled awake, a multitude of wings fluttering in a panic-filled cacophony. Small bodies exploded in puffs of feathers, and a fine mist of dark, oily blood began to fall like rain. 

More and more pigeons exploded – a bloody avian massacre from which nothing escaped. The distortion got nearer and nearer, progress inexorable. Only when a spray of pigeon blood hit her directly in the face had Hsu Yi's paralysis broken.

Turning, she'd sprinted as fast as she could, the distortion so close on her heels that she 'd expected it to roll over and consume her with every passing second. Its multitude of voices had filled her head, chittering maddeningly, crying out for more blood.

A train had been in the process of pulling into the station. Ahead of her the platform had rapidly been coming to an end. With no time to think about it Hsu Yi acted purely on instinct and dived inside the nearest carriage.

The sliding doors had slid shut, between her and the distortion, cutting off its path.

As the train pulled away she'd sank down onto her haunches, sucking in great lungfuls of air. She'd been able to feel herself shaking with relief; hear herself sobbing with the release of pent up tension.

It hadn't been over though. Not by a long shot.

Eventually, as some of the immediacy of the fear had begun to fade, she'd pulled herself back to her feet, still able to feel herself trembling. 

The carriage had been all but deserted. Down one end of it there was a man with a hand span of sunburnt beer gut showing between the bottom of his too-tight t-shirt and the top of his jeans. His head was lolled back and his mouth open wide, rhythmic snoring at a similar pitch to a badly maintained chainsaw coming out. At the opposite end, as far from this individual as it was possible to get, was a small, very old looking black man with wispy white hair and a wizened walnut of a face.

He'd stared at Hsu Yi, expression blank.

She'd been staring back at him, her breath still coming too quickly, when the tap came on the window beside her. It made her start violently, panic surging again. 

Initially it hadn't appeared that there was anything there – just the early morning suburban vista of south London, passing by the window in a high speed blur. 

Hsu Yi had started to relax again – to curse her jumpiness – when the tapping sound repeated. This second time it had been accompanied by a horribly familiar cacophony of gibberish voices, echoing inside her head.

Gasping in shock, she'd taken off again, running full pelt down the centre of the carriage. Outside the window, alongside the moving train, she'd been all too aware of that _thing_, whatever the hell it was, moving parallel to her.

The next carriage had been all but deserted too, the only occupants a young couple, perhaps coming home after a night's clubbing. The woman – or girl – was asleep with her head on her companion's shoulder. Hsu Yi tore past them without a second glance, able to hear the panicked gasping of her own breathing as she ran.

Outside the distortion had kept pace with her, step for step, tapping intermittently on the windows and cackling.

Throwing a wild, wide-eyed glance behind her as she barged through the doors to the next carriage, Hsu Yi then managed to run straight into the chest of a ticket inspector.

She'd bounced off him, the wind knocked from her body in a whoosh as she fell over backwards. Leaning over her, expression showing a mixture of weary annoyance and concern, there'd been a rotund, well-fed looking black man.

"What you in such a hurry for there, miss?" His voice was a deep bass rumble.

She hadn't been able to form words amidst her panic, her mouth goldfishing. Her gaze had travelled further down the carriage, over the man's shoulder. 

One of the windows was open.

Horror surging she'd felt the thing charge for the opening. 

"Hey, calm down, calm down. I'm not gonna hurt you." The man must have seen the fear on her face, but he'd misinterpreted the cause. "Here, let me help you up." So saying, he'd extended his hand – forced a reassuring smile onto his face.

It had squeezed its way through the gap, a blurring, furiously shifting pattern of air.

_Surely he must sense it. Surely he must sense it._ The thought had echoed inside Hsu Yi's head as she scrabbled backwards, away from it. The hunger pouring off it was like the heat from a furnace.

"Hey. Hey. . ." He'd started.

"Look out!" Hsu Yi's warning came out almost as a scream. The distorted pattern of air rushed forward, along the carriage. A discarded newspaper flapped up in the wake of its passage, as though pulled by a powerful gust of wind.

The ticket inspector had finally seemed to catch on that something was amiss, turning to face the oncoming threat as Hsu Yi had backed into the doors separating the carriages behind her.

"What the. . ." He'd just had time to start. Then the distortion had hit him.

Before she turned and ran Hsu Yi had caught a glimpse of him being span around like a dervish – as if he'd been sucked into the heart of a raging vortex. All of a sudden a coin-sized chunk of flesh had disappeared from his cheek, a mist of blood spraying in the air. . .

She'd seen no more, although his dreadful screams echoed after her. Inside she damned herself as a coward, each rending cry of pain another barb driven into her soul. _What could I have done except get myself killed too?_

As she'd sprinted towards them the couple she'd passed earlier had started from their seat wide-eyed, both at the sight of her and the horrifying sounds that had trailed after her.

Run!" She'd screamed at them, but hadn't paused to see if they'd taken any notice. Behind her the screaming had faded, loosing strength and fading behind the sound of the moving train.

As the train had slowed, pulling into the next station, there had still been no sign of pursuit. The distortion – _Hrizu_: the word appeared in her head out of nowhere, and what it meant she had no idea – was apparently still too caught up in its feast. 

She'd pounded on the door release before the train had even fully stopped, every moment of delay driving her frantic. Then she'd darted onto the platform, running for the stairs leading up to the street level. There had been a moment, as the train started to pull away behind her, when she dared hope that she had managed to make good her escape. Then that horribly familiar hissing cacophony of voices had reached her ears, and, out of the corner of her eye as she'd thrown a panicked look over her shoulder, she'd seen an unmistakable flicker of movement.

Now, in front of her, an automated ticket barrier loomed. She hurdled it without breaking stride, trying desperately to force a few extra fractions of speed from her limbs as she sprinted across the station concourse. Behind her she could sense it, coming after her, an inexorably juggernaut that would never stop until it had its prey.

Her.

Bursting through the doors and onto the street, Hsu Yi paused a moment, looking for any means escape. Her breath came in ragged, terrified bursts.

There was a line of gold showing between the buildings on the eastern horizon – the onset of dawn. _Would the sunlight save her? Drive that thing back to whatever circle of hell it originated from?_

_No. Sunlight will not save you from the Hrizu._ That voice definitely wasn't her own.

In front of her was a parked mini-cab, its engine idling. Feeling the thing – the Hrizu – closing in fast she dashed towards it, opening the back door and throwing herself inside. 

"Drive!" Her yell was hoarse – borderline hysterical.

The driver – an Asian man with a thick moustache and a disinterested gaze – just looked round at her slowly. He was in the middle of rolling a cigarette. "What's your hurry, lady?"

"Just fucking drive!" _Shit_. Bloody imbecile. 

"Hey, no need for. . ." He started. Too late. 

As the Hrizu came in through the window she went for the door on the other side of the cab. She heard the driver cry out; saw the garish explosion of blood that sprayed across the inside of the windscreen. Then she was off and running again, legs pounding across the tarmac, arms pumping.

As it feasted on the Taxi-driver it seemed to be laughing at her – assuring her that, yes, she would be next.

_You can't escape you know._

_Shut up._

She was heading towards a bunch of warehouses, storage yards and dilapidated office blocks that had built up around the station and the railway line. Behind her she was aware of the _Hrizu _finishing its impromptu meal, starting in pursuit of her again almost lazily – a cat toying with a mouse.

_It can catch you anytime it wants to. It can move as fast as a train, remember?_

She rounded a corner, forcing herself to ignore that inner voice. Ahead of her the access road stopped in a chain link fence, the gate in the middle of it padlocked shut. Beyond it was a freight yard. No time to turn back now.

_The only reason you've lived as long as you have is that it enjoys the taste of your fear._

She threw herself at the fence, hands snagging the top of it. Swinging her legs up she dropped quickly over the other side, landing in a crouch on the hard baked earth. With scarcely a pause she was off and running again, although now the beginnings of a stitch was forming in her side – sharp nagging pain that would grow and grow as long as she kept running.

_Think of it as foreplay. Postponing the small pleasure you could have now for the much larger pleasure you know will come later_.

Around her were piles of metal freight containers, stacked on top of each other to form towering, shadow-filled canyons – maze-like in their complexity. Mini showers of gravel flew up behind her with each step. She could feel her pursuer closing inexorably – hear its multitude of gibberish voices rising in a dreadful cacophony – hunger more powerful than ever, strengthened rather than satiated by its impromptu feasting. 

She tried to go even faster, but there was nothing more left in the tank. The gap kept on closing. _Why are you telling me this?_

_Because I can save you._

Hsu Yi threw an involuntary glance over her shoulder, almost imagining she could feel it breathing down her neck. As she hurled over a pile of rusting girders she missed her step, stumbling. Sharp pain flared as gravel tore into her knees and the palms of her hands. _Oh God. Oh God_.

Grimacing she forced herself to her feet. Terror flashed, threatening to rage out of control. Inside she new that the slip had been as good as fatal, but she kept on going – wouldn't give up. Not now. Not ever. Breath coming in wheezing gasps, pain knifing into the side of her ribcage, she broke into a run again.

_How?_ She demanded of that inner voice. _Who are you?_

_Who I am doesn't matter. Anyway, you _know_ who I am._

The figurine. Megaera, Luke Charron had called her. The Jealous One. The Grudging.

_What do you want for saving me?_ Nothing in life was free.

Hsu Yi rounded a corner and found only a dead end ahead of her, three sides boxed in by containers. Nowhere more to run. Nowhere to hide. _What do you want?_ It was a cry of despair.

_The same as what everyone wants, in their hearts. I want freedom. If you set me free I can save you._

Bravery was a fallacy. If you were seen as brave it just meant you'd never been sufficiently scared yet. As the thing – the _Hrizu_ – closed in she felt something inside herself whither. Honour had no meaning beside such fear.

_Okay. Okay. Whatever you want! Just don't let it eat me!_ She had regressed to a terrified child, afraid of the monsters that lurk in the darkness, willing to agree to anything.

_Take me out of the bag you carry and hold me in your hands._ Coolly commanding that voice. Coolly furious.

Hsu Yi's hands shook violently as she tried to get the zip open. Tears streamed unnoticed down her cheeks. The _Hrizu_, cackling to itself in darkly triumphant glee, rounded the corner as the bag fell away. She grasped the tarnished figurine tightly – desperately.

_Now hold me out toward it._

She obeyed the voice's authority purely on instinct, thrusting the figurine towards the rapidly approaching doom. 

The distortion wave rolled onwards regardless, a twisting mass like a swarm of a thousand invisible winged maggots. As it touched her and the outstretched statuette Hsu Yi heard herself screaming. . .

There was a flare of brilliant light. The figurine exploded violently into a thousand pieces.

Shards of shrapnel should have ripped Hsu Yi's hands – her face and her body – to shreds. They didn't. Instead they simply vanished into her flesh, without leaving so much as a mark behind.

The light subsided.

There was no sign of the Hrizu. The air was calm and clear, without a trace of disturbance. The only sound was a suggestion of a fading wail that might have only been overactive imagination. Hsu Yi collapsed limply onto her hands and knees.

She stayed like that for a long time, shudders periodically wracking her shoulders. Eventually even the shudders ceased. Then something indefinable changed.

Eventually her head tilted back, her fringe falling aside from where it had been concealing her face. A ray of dawn sunlight flashed as it touched her eyes, showing irises that were now strange, inhuman disks of copper. Her lips curved up at the corners, though you would be hard pressed to call the expression a smile.

Then Megaera stood up, reflexively attempting to flex her wings. For the first time in millennia she walked free.

* * *

Lara walked along a deserted corridor in the back offices of the British Museum. The only sound was the soft clicking of the heels of her shoes, and the early morning half-light leant everything a strange unreal sheen. Surroundings that should have been familiar appeared eerie and alien – as if she was walking in a dream.

As she reached her office door she realised that she was unconsciously holding her breath. _Looking for ghosts in the shadows dear?_

It didn't seem particularly funny though.

She hadn't been home yet. It felt like too much of a risk. Her newly acquired 'friends' might be there already, waiting for the chance to renew acquaintances. Of course, they could also have been waiting here. . . but if you let yourself second-guess all your actions you'd never get out of bed in the morning.

_I should have gone straight to the police_.

Perhaps, but that felt too much like an admission that she wasn't in control. 

_Well girl, I'll let you in on something,, you're not_. 

She wanted some time to think though – to find out how things stood and weigh up what to do. Then she would go to the police. Probably. Possibly. If she deemed it necessary.

She dumped the green holdall on her antique desk. 

Apart from that desk the office looked unused. There was an accumulation of dusk in the corners she hadn't bothered to clean up yet, and a general lack of the everyday clutter that suggested occupancy. During the past year she hadn't made more than occasional use of the place.

Without any of her usual grace she slumped into one of the chairs and sighed. After a moment she leaned forward, elbows on the desk, holding her head in her hands.

_Stop feeling so bloody sorry for yourself. You've had worse days_.

_Oh?_

She went through a quick list. Strangely it made her feel better, though it probably should have been depressing that she could come up with so many instances so quickly. A fleeting smile quirked across her lips. At least no Egyptian temples had collapsed on top her today.

Her gaze alighted on the phone. She'd already tried calling Winston, to alert him to the possible danger, before she remembered he wouldn't be in until later in the morning. She'd also tried Emil's number, but had only got his voice mail. 

Lara resisted the momentary temptation to phone either of them again. It wasn't quite six o'clock yet. Most sensible people would probably still be in bed and not very appreciative about being woken up. Instead she leant back and turned on a rather outdated looking radio – morbidly curious about whether what had happened yesterday had managed to make the news.

A travel update. Presented by the kind of manicly cheerful person who shouldn't be allowed at this time of day. The sort of person she instinctively had the urge to slap.

Lara let her thoughts drift, tuning the babbling from the radio out of her head. After a time she started to stand up, intent on getting a coffee – something to take the edge off the tiredness that had crept up on her.

She paused as her gaze settled on the holdall – still hadn't gotten around to looking inside it. _Well what are you waiting for? No point stealing something if you're not even going to have a look and see what it is you've stolen, is there?_

She opened the zip with more than a hint of trepidation, although she couldn't quite pinpoint its source. Then she saw what the holdall contained.

Her eyes went wide. She froze. Her first thought was that she must be imagining things – interpreting the evidence of her eyes wrongly. But no, it remained the same however she looked at it.

Hands shaking fractionally, Lara lifted the object out of the bag and held it up to the light. She could feel both her breathing and heartbeat going to fast. _Surely it can't be. . ?_

But it was. A figurine of verdigrissed metal depicting a graceful winged woman, eerily familiar.

A horde of old half-forgotten memories flooded back. . .

****

Interlude -The Shrine (1994)

"Where are you creeping off to in such a hurry?"

Lara jolted in surprise at the unexpected voice behind her, spinning round to face it. Instinctively, before she registered who the voice belonged to, her hands went for the matching pair of pistols that hung at her hips.

"Oh, it's you Dasky. You should be careful, sneaking up on a girl like that. It could be detrimental to your continued good health." After a couple of heartbeats she lowered the twin stainless steel Brownings from in front of his face. There was still a hint of wariness in her eyes though.

Nikolas Daskalopulu started breathing again as the momentary danger of being shot passed. "A little jumpy today, eh Lara?"

"No." A fleeting smile, quickly gone. "If I was jumpy I'd have shot you."

Nikolas grinned uneasily. He could never quite tell when Lara was joking or serious. Probably the nuances of English humour escaped him. "Well I'm glad you're not feeling jumpy then."

"So am I. Bullets can be quite expensive you know. I'd have hated to have wasted one unnecessarily."

"Er, yes." He took an involuntarily step backwards from her. There were times when he found himself wondering whether his colleague was altogether sane. She was certainly very different to anyone else he had ever known.

He looked her up and down. She was dressed in tight khaki shorts and a light grey tank top – pretty much her usual attire when it came to it. Strong, lithe sun-bronzed limbs gleamed in the late afternoon sunlight and her burnished chestnut hair – pulled back in a single long braid as it always was – seemed to shine.

Of course most of the time he was altogether more aware of her undoubted femaleness than her mental state. . . A truly spectacular looking woman, and no mistake. Sometimes he half imagined that she was a reincarnation of some Olympian goddess – Elektra perhaps. Certainly the fierceness was there.

As Nikolas met her gaze again he saw from the tolerant amusement there that she was very aware of the scrutiny – and also very used to experiencing it from men. He felt a momentary flash of shame. _I'm not like that. Really._

"So Dasky, don't you have pottery fragments in urgent need of cataloguing or something?"

_In other words get lost, you're not wanted_. He decided not to take the hint. She was the one trying to sneak off somewhere after all. Not him. "You know, you didn't answer my question."

"Question?" Lara quirked one eyebrow.

"Where are you going?"

"I have a question of my own for you Dasky. Why are you following me?" She looked around at their surroundings, bringing a hand up to shade her eyes. To Nikolas it seemed like she expected to see someone else – and that somebody wasn't, from the look of it, a friend.

There was no one in sight though – just rugged, rocky hills that weren't quite large enough to be called mountains, their slopes covered in loose scree and dense blankets of gnarled shrubbery. There could, he supposed, be someone using that undergrowth as cover, but rather them than him. He recalled the sharpness of their thorns rather more clearly than he would wish.

In fact everything looked calm and peaceful to his eyes, possessed of a desolate kind of beauty that was quite inspiring. There was no sign of the hand of man and it was almost possible to believe that they were the only two people on earth at that particular moment in time. Certainly there was no indication that there was a sizable camp of archaeologists less than a mile away from this spot.

"Because you are acting suspiciously Lara. Sneaking off in the evening on your own while the others' backs are turned, trying to be stealthy. You're up to something, and I'll wager that Professor Stephenson would not be pleased with you if he found out about it."

"My, my Dasky. Haven't we developed an overactive imagine of late." Lara finished scanning the horizon before looking back at him, fixing him with those penetrating brown eyes of hers in a manner that made him feel slightly uncomfortable. "If you must know I'm going for a walk. I do it every evening at about this time. I enjoy a bit of solitude – the chance to be alone with my thoughts. Without _any_ interruptions."

That last was another hint, obviously. Nikolas again decided to ignore it. "Do you always take a pair of guns along when you go for a walk then?"

"As a matter of fact, Dasky I do. You can never be too careful if you're a poor defenceless woman out on her own."

Nikolas tried to reconcile the words 'poor' and 'defenceless' with the Lara Croft that was standing in front of him, graceful and poised – and, he added to himself, _dangerous_. He found the task to be beyond the scope of his imagination. "Oh, come on. You don't expect me to believe that do you? You won't find anything more dangerous out here than a lynx."

"I'm generally more worried about predators of the two-legged variety." So saying she turned her back on him and started walking, loose stone crunching beneath the soles of her walking boots. "Bye, bye Dasky. See you back in camp in a few hours."

For a moment he just watched her – the hypnotic sway of her hips – as she strode briskly down the slope away from. _You're not getting away from me that easily._

"Wait up." He could feel sweat trickling down his face as he started after her, having to scurry in an undignified manner in an effort to catch up.

Lara ignored him – didn't so much as glance back.

_Damn_. He could feel himself becoming breathless as he continued after her, struggling to keep pace. _Not as fit as you should be are you Nikolas?_ _Too many hearty meals and not enough exercise_. She certainly put him to shame. 

"Lara!" He implored.

"You still here Dasky?" She finally took pity on him, stopping again and turning to face him, hands on hips. "Didn't you get the message? I would very much prefer to be left alone."

He stared at her face – cool, beautiful, a hint of annoyance showing through to the surface. "Okay, okay," he said quickly. "You tell me what you're really up to. Where you're really going, and I'll stop bothering you." A part of him was feeling ever so slightly offended by all this. _Am I really such bad company?_

She simply snorted and started to turn away again.

"You're looking for something aren't you?"

For several seconds he thought she was going to ignore him – just keep on walking. Then she stopped and looked back at him again. "And what would make you think that?"

Ah-hah, so he'd hit the nail on the head then. There was a brief surge of excitement, which he tried hard to hide. "I've heard about you, Lara Croft. You have quite a reputation."

She grunted. "Well I wouldn't believe everything I hear in that regard Dasky." After a moment, as if impelled by curiosity, she added: "What precisely _have_ you heard?"

He chose carefully. Some of it wasn't altogether flattering, so no need to mention that just now. "That you're extremely . . . unconventional. Daring even. And you've made a number of startling discoveries because of that . . . unconventionality."

A hint of a smile. He saw that she knew precisely how much of an edited version that was and was amused by it. "I think you forgot the bit about me being an unscrupulous grave robber. Along with some other particularly choice items."

"Well I don't believe everything I hear." He grinned, echoing Lara's earlier phrase.

"So what do you want, Dasky?" She fixed him with that penetrating gaze again and it felt for a moment like she was looking right into his soul.

"I want in," he blurted.

She blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Oh, I don't mean I want any part of what you find or anything. That's all your work and nothing to do with me. No I just want to go along with you. To be there when you find whatever it is you're looking for. To see it uncovered." He was rambling, caught up in a sense of almost childlike excitement and adventure. 

Somewhere inside a sensible part of him tried to protest. _What about your training Nikolas? You know this isn't how proper archaeology is done_. He ignored it. You couldn't always let sensible rule your life.

Lara was immediately shaking her head. "Uh-huh. No way. You've got no idea what you're asking. This isn't some kind of game you know." She appeared to think twice about that last statement and amended: "At least it's not the kind of safe, cosy game you can decide you've had enough of and don't want to play anymore. This is dangerous and it can get you killed."

He felt a brief crushing sense of disappointment at the expression of absolute denial he saw on her face. He pushed it aside. _You're not going to give up so easily are you? You're not going to let her think you're just some child she can tell what to do?_ "So I was right then. You admit you _are_ looking for something."

Her lips compressed into a moue.

_Ah-hah, got you there haven't I?_

"If you don't let me come along I'll tell Stephenson what you're up to. He won't like it, and when he lets them know I doubt the British Museum will like it much either. You're not doing this for the museum are you?"

She sighed. "You know Dasky, nobody likes a snitch. Besides, you've got no idea what I'm actually doing."

"_Please_ Lara. Let me come along."

This isn't a bloody picnic you know." There was open exasperation in Lara's voice now.

"I realise that."

She muttered something beneath her breath that he didn't quite catch. He got the definite impression that it wasn't anything complimentary though. "Very well." It was said with ill grace. "If you can manage to keep up." A rather pointed glance down at his inexorably expanding waistline.

"I managed okay up to now didn't I? You didn't even see me until I called out to you."

"I was concentrating on something else," she responded a touch defensively. He saw that he'd managed to at least score a point with her though. However grudging it might be. "Okay Dasky, come along if that's what you want. But you do everything I tell you, right away without question. And you absolutely do not touch anything unless I tell you it's okay. Is that clear?"

"As crystal." Nikolas Daskalopulu was suddenly grinning, unable to contain the excitement he was feeling.

Lara simply shook her head in resignation and started walking again.

* * *

After the two figures – beautiful, poised, athletic Englishwoman and shorter, slightly rotund looking moustachioed Greek man – had disappeared from view a section of the dense blanket of shrubbery moved and began to rustle. A few seconds later and a man rose into view.

For a time he stood, motionless and silent, gazing in the direction in which they had just departed. His dark eyes were brooding and unreadable. Then a wide smile split across his black-bearded face, teeth glinting in the sunlight in a manner that was strangely malevolent. Hungry even.

A low chuckle welled up from the back of the man's throat. _Lara, Lara. So you've found yourself a puppy dog_.

A quick check of the pair of magnums he carried, and he started after them.

* * *

"So what is it we're looking for anyway?" Nikolas's Greek-accented English was noticeably ragged from the effects of exertion, his face ruddy and slick with sweat.

Lara had been setting a pretty punishing pace over the rugged ground and even she was starting to feel it now. She stopped abruptly in her tracks and Nikolas almost crashed straight into her back, caught unawares. She looked around again, scanning the horizon through 360 degrees. Nothing. Again.

Perhaps she was being too cautious. But she had been warned that certain others might show an interest. And certain others might very well mean _him_. 

_Your being paranoid dear – he's halfway around the world from here probably. He's not going to show up everywhere you do. This isn't the movies._ Still, despite the lack of evidence she had the nagging feeling that she was being watched.

"You've heard of the Erinyes I presume?" Finally she responded to Nikolas's question. She'd reached the conclusion that if they were being followed whoever it was was too good to give away any sign.

"The Erinyes?" She saw the surprise in his expression and hid a smile. "Yes, yes. I've heard of them. . . Of course."

Lara simply raised one eyebrow and left the silence for him to fill.

"The Daughters of the Night they're sometimes called. The three goddesses of revenge. Megaera, Alecto and Tisiphone. Among the oldest and most enigmatic deities of ancient Greece. Supposedly they were formed as droplets of blood fell to earth from the wounds of Uranus, castrated by his son, the titan Chronus. Their attention was brought down on murderers, perjurers, those guilty of ingratitude or disrespect – or simply those who had managed to in some way offend the gods. And once you had their attention. . ." A hand drawn in a swift line across his throat. "Well, you were as good as done for. They pursued you remorselessly until you were driven mad and died. Homer and Euripides both refer to them as I recall." He shrugged. "Does that satisfy you? I have not, I confess, really studied them. That was really dredging the dark recesses of my memory."

"It'll do. For now." She was distracted by something in the corner of her vision. _Movement?_ Yes, she saw a few seconds later. But only a Hyrax – a large rodent-like mammal of the same family as the rabbit. A quiet exhalation of relief. _Get a grip girl. If you keep looking over your shoulder for him your entire life it'll drive you insane._

Like her own personal Fury. The irony of that didn't escape her.

"Well?" She noticed a hint of impatience in Nikolas's voice. "What do the Erinyes have to do with what you're looking for? I can't recall any great faith being built around them. They're more your 'be good or the bogeyman will get you' types that you see in just about every culture on the planet."

From what Lara had discovered they appeared to be rather more than that, but she didn't bother to correct him. 

Standing still like this, exposed, was starting to make her feel a touch uncomfortable. She started walking again, hiding a smile at Nikolas's stifled groan. "Somewhere around here is supposed to be one of the spots where Uranus's blood fell to earth."

"Supposed?"

"To be more precise, there's a cave, about a mile away from here. Now, now Dasky, don't groan. It was you who asked to come along I recall. Demanded in fact. And this is really nothing more than a gentle stroll."

"My name is Nikolas. Or Nick. Why do you persist in calling me Dasky?"

She'd been wondering when that would manage to provoke a response. As soon as his feet started hurting it seemed. "Because I know it annoys you."

He muttered something she didn't quite catch. "And why would you want to annoy such a nice, kind-hearted gentleman as myself? How would you like it if I started calling you Crofty?"

She gave an elegant shrug of her shoulders. "I've been called a lot worse things in my time."

"So what are we expecting to find when we reach this cave then?"

Another shrug. "Honestly? I don't know. A shrine of some sort, my research has led me to believe, though that is such a vague term it can mean just about anything. Perhaps there'll be nothing. On the other hand there could be something spectacular."

"Though you tend to believe that latter of the two possibilities," Nikolas reasoned.

"Who can say? I'm sure you know as well as I do that it's best not to go in with fixed idea of what you're going to find. Reality has a habit of throwing up surprises. One way or another."

"But you are looking for something specific I take it," he persisted.

"Perhaps," was her somewhat enigmatic response.

By the time they reached the cave the valley was deep in shadow, refreshingly cool compared with the heat of the rest of the day.

"Is that it?" Nikolas said after they'd stood, contemplating it for several minutes. She could hear the edge of disappointment in his voice.

"Yes. That is, as you put it, it." In truth Lara thought, it didn't look like much – an almost invisible opening at the foot of a bluff of reddish coloured rock. From this angle it appeared to be half-choked with scree and definitely not large enough to admit a human standing upright.

"You would expect something slightly more impressive for what amounts to the birthplace of a god."

An echo of Lara's thoughts twenty-four hours earlier when she had first looked upon the cave entrance. "If it looked outwardly spectacular people would have uncovered the place years ago, wouldn't they Dask-Nikolas? Trust me, it's the place I'm looking for."

She started down the slope, booted feet knocking mini-cascades of scree loose to tumble ahead of her. Up close they found that the cave had been considerably larger at some point in the past – ten or fifteen feet tall at least and even wider than that. That was before the scree slope had subsided though, all but blocking the entrance off.

Lara pulled one of her Browning HP35 pistol's as she peered into the darkness. The air around her was dry and dusty, tickling her nose and the back of her throat. "It's an ideal den for a family of lynxes," she explained before he could voice the question. "Although they're not individually all that dangerous a mother with cubs could be. . . rather demonstrative."

Crouching low, she started inside. "Now remember what I told you. . ."

"I know. I know. Stay behind you. Do exactly what you say. Don't touch anything." He broke into a coughing fit as a cloud of dust hit him in the face.

Lara shot him a glare over her shoulder. His tone had sounded altogether too blasé. "I mean it Nikolas. One slip in here. . . It's likely to get us both killed. You understand that? If you don't think you can handle it then you can wait behind for me here."

"Sorry, sorry." He raised his hands as the coughing fit subsided. "I assure you I won't do anything stupid. I'll be extremely careful."

Lara grunted noncommittally. Sometimes, she thought, merely being careful just wasn't enough.

* * *

The man with the close-cropped black beard crouched down behind a rocky outcropping at the top of the hill, watching the cave entrance. The two lines of footprints leading down the slope in front of him – one set considerably deeper and more ragged than the other – were obviously extremely fresh. Indeed, he estimated that he was at most five minutes behind them.

For the moment he decided to remain where he was.

_Lara, dear Lara. Are you looking for me now?_ A feral grin crossed his face. _Oh, I do hope so_.

He imagined her standing just inside the cave entrance, concealed by shadow as she gazed up at the hilltop, looking for signs of pursuit, but unable to see anything. The image grew so vivid that he could almost feel her heart fluttering with tightly contained fear. Delicious.

For a moment he felt the urge to charge down the slope, magnums blazing – to put an end to it there and then; fast and brutal and intense. 

He suppressed it quickly; a past master of controlling the strange and fierce passions that often roared through him. For one thing she really could be there, looking up at the hilltop, and back-lit by the late evening sunlight he would make a perfect target. For another he judged it was virtually impossible to make any descent quietly – they would know he was coming long before he got there.

No, better to wait, he decided. Let Lara face the traps and dangers that waited beneath the earth. Let Lara recover the artefact. Less work for him to do.

And when she had it he would take it from her. Like he had taken so many other things from her in the past. His grin broadened. _Candy from a baby, as the Americans say_.

* * *

A few metres inside the cave it was possible to stand fully upright as the scree slide petered out. Lara took a torch from her backpack, its brilliant beam piercing through the darkness. No irate family of lynxes awaited, nor any other form of animal come to that. Which was strange. Wildlife always took full advantage of its surroundings, and this looked like an ideal den spot.

The cave went back further than Lara's torch beam showed, vanishing into gloom, and the air was hot and arid – unlike the dankness she usually associated with underground. At the moment there was no sign of man's hand ever having touched their surroundings, the walls rugged and uneven.

_But this is the place. It has to be. _There were no other possibilities in the nearby area – something she had confirmed from several evenings of meticulous searching.

Behind her Nikolas had fallen quiet and the only noise was the soft echo of their footsteps.

Something strange. The feeling crept up on her with each forward step until it was impossible to ignore. She couldn't put her finger on precisely what it was, but it was undeniable. Suddenly she could completely understand why nothing had wanted to make this place its home.

Abruptly the ground started to slope steeply down beneath their feet, still with no sign of any end to it. She paused, inexplicably reluctant to go on – heard Nikolas's teeth click sharply behind her. A glance back showed a distinctly uneasy cast to his expression.

"You feel it too, don't you?"

"Feel it?" Definitely. It was in his eyes. Though he didn't want to admit it and appear superstitious; be put to shame by a woman.

"It." She shrugged. "I can't come up with any kind of better description than that. But you know what I mean."

He licked his lips nervously. "I. . ." He began, then stopped. "Looking down there I get this nagging sensation." Another hesitation. "It feels like. . .well like we're about to walk into the mouth of Hades."

"Well in that case you'd better have your fare ready."

He gave her a blank look.

"The boatman, Charon, will only take customers who are able to pay the fare."

His chuckle was more than a little strained.

"Come on, lets get moving." The words were as much for herself as for Nikolas. Her feet felt as if they'd become rooted to the spot.

Despite the downward slope it was increasingly difficult to make forward progress. The air around her seemed to have taken on the consistency of treacle, and the effort of merely putting one foot in front of another became an almighty strain. She could feel the fear – the bubbling undercurrent of panic – but she couldn't say why she felt it.

After several minutes slow progress she realised that Nikolas was no longer with her.

She stopped and looked back. He was ten yards behind, appearing to strain against an invisible wall like an unconvincing mime artist. Sweat was pouring down his face.

"Nikolas." Lara extended a hand towards him. She saw him make one shuddering step closer to her then stop. His shoulders slumped.

Something, she concluded grimly, didn't want them going any further. A little icicle shiver passed up her spine.

"Nikolas," she repeated. If you want this you have to really _want_ it. You can't give up at the first sign of difficulty. Now walk towards me. Just concentrate on getting your leg muscles working. Don't think about anything else."

He managed a single shuddering step. A few seconds later he managed another. Then a third. Then he was walking again, albeit in the manner of a robot from a low budget 1950's sci-fi movie. His face bulged with the stain.

Abruptly something seemed to shatter, the intolerable sense of pressure that had built up vanishing in a single instant. Gasping for breath, Nikolas made it to her side. She could see his limbs shaking.

"Well done," she said simply and meant it.

"What the. . . what the _fuck_ was that?"

Startled slightly, Lara realised she'd never heard Nikolas swear. At least not in English. 

_What indeed?_ That was most definitely a very good question, and one she didn't have any nice convenient answers for. Spike pits and giant boulders were all very well, but this. . . this was something else. Suddenly her excitement grew. They were in the right place, no doubt about it. 

Not, of course, that she'd had any.

They continued walking again, neither of them saying anything. Periodically flashes of doubt or despair or fear surged up inside her, but she managed to ignore them, recognising that they didn't originate from inside herself. Indeed, they appeared to be associated with particular spots, the feelings vanishing almost immediately each time she forced herself to take another forward step.

Then, abruptly, the walls of the cave opened out around them.

They stopped, this time of their own accord. The quality of the air around them had changed, no longer so tight and hot and dusty. The sounds of their footsteps and their breathing were no longer so loud and closely contained. 

A cavern.

Lara's slowly sweeping torch beam hit a pillar. Beside her she felt Nikolas start.

Man made, from the same reddish hued rock as the cave they'd just traversed, it was so broad that Lara's arms would have stretched only halfway around its girth. Carved in the centre of it there was a badly worn stone face. It was this that had made Nikolas jump.

A woman, Lara saw, and not a very friendly looking one either. That much was apparent despite the fact that half of it had crumbled away to dust. Her mouth was stretched open in a scream or a shriek and the one eye that remained intact seemed to glare at them with implacable rage. Carved hair fanned out around that face, its tangled coils resembling a nest of snakes.

Lara lowered the torch beam to the floor between them and the pillar, and very carefully walked towards it.

"Do you know which one she is?" Nikolas asked quietly as she inspected it more closely.

She shook her head. "I'm not certain. If you pushed me I'd guess Megaera, but that's only really from the derivations of a couple of local place names. I couldn't say for sure." 

Lara's hand came up to touch the face but she caught herself, not sure what damage her fingertips would do to the crumbly looking stonework. There were other similar pillars around it too, supporting a ceiling about thirty feet above their heads. Several of them had collapsed, along with sections of the ceiling above where they'd stood, now nothing more than forlorn piles of rubble. Others showed deep cracks and fissures, looking like all they required to collapse was someone to breathe on them too hard.

"This place is amazing." Nikolas's awed whisper reached her from several metres off to the left, where he was inspecting another of the pillars.

"Freeze."

The urgency in Lara's voice was such that he obeyed, instantly and without question.

"Now very slowly put your foot down about two feet to the left. Absolutely do not tread on that tile directly in front of you." It was raised several millimetres above the floor surrounding it and looked loose. To her eyes it screamed trap.

Swallowing heavily and almost managing to overbalance in the process, Nikolas did as he was told. "Wha. . ?" 

"Just loose," Lara muttered to herself as she knelt down to inspect it. False alarm. She shot him a glare. "What did I tell you earlier?"

He held his hands up. "I didn't touch anything."

"Well also don't wander off. And especially don't tread anywhere I haven't trodden first."

He opened his mouth to say something in protest but bit it back as he caught the look in her eyes. She wasn't in a patient mood.

They made their way across the chamber carefully, Nikolas following meekly in Lara's footsteps though his eyes roved everywhere, peering into the far reaches of the gloom. Around the perimeter of the chamber there were several more openings, similar to the one they had entered by and apparently leading off into further caves. For the moment Lara ignored them though. Her torch beam had shown an archway directly opposite, and she instinctively knew that this was what she wanted. The whole chamber seemed to _flow_ towards it.

It was blocked.

Lara stood and stared at the wall of rubble that barred her path with a slightly hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach. Although there were other directions to explore she was sure that what she was looking for lay through here. And from the look of things it would take an entire team of archaeologists several weeks of concerted digging to get through this amount fallen rock.

"Looks like we'll have to try one of those other openings we passed."

Lara didn't bother acknowledging him, instead concentrating on shining the torch beam into every dark recess and crevice. Abruptly she dropped to her knees.

_Yes!_ There was an opening. A small gap at floor level that looked as if it might just be large enough to admit her – at a squeeze. She dropped to her knees in front of it. The torch beam showed that it extended back about fifteen or twenty feet before opening out again.

_I can make it._

As long as I don't accidentally disturb anything and bring the whole lot crashing down on top of me.

Part of her quailed at the idea of crawling inside there – the thought of all that loose rock, pressing down, ready to shift and settle with every passing second. . . 

_Do you want to live forever, girl?_

Well no, but being buried alive didn't exactly appeal.

"What are you doing Lara?" She felt Nikolas leaning over her.

"There's a gap all the way to the other side. Just large enough for me to crawl through."

Nikolas muttered something. Then said: "I'm not going to be able to fit."

Lara looked up at him, an amused smile briefly touching her lips as she studied his waistline. "What's the matter Nikolas? Too many Big Mac's of late?"

"Big Mac's? Big Mac's!" The outrage in his voice suggested she had just accused him of a crime on a par with molesting small children or domesticated animals. "I would never defile my body with such corporate American swill. That you could even suggest such a thing. . ."

"Now, now Nikolas. You're echoing." His raised voice bounced crazily off the chamber's walls. With a deep breath Lara came to a decision. _No sense hanging about. . ._ "See you in a little while." She stuck her head inside the gap.

"Wait! You're serious about this?"

She sighed: pulled her head out again. "Yes Nikolas, I am."

"That is insane." The idea of someone crawling into that space seemed to make him queasy. "You have no idea what's waiting for you on the other side. And what happens if it collapses when you're crawling through. Or once you're on the other side? What then."

Lara gazed at his extremely worried looking face. "Then you go and get help. As quickly as you can, if that's okay with you."

"But you could be. . ."

"Killed? Yes, I know. If you want to look at it like that that's what life is: one long list of opportunities to get yourself killed. But you can get killed even if you stay in bed all day. In fact I'm sure you'll find that, statistically speaking, staying in bed all day is much more dangerous than what I'm about to do."

Lara shrugged off her pack, taking out a box of flares, which she shoved into the pockets of her shorts. She tossed the rest to Nikolas, who caught it reflexively. "There's a spare torch in there, so you don't have to stand around waiting in the dark."

"Crazy. Absolutely crazy." He shook his head.

She grinned at him. "I know. But I never claimed to be anything else, did I?" With that Lara started to pull herself forward into the narrow gap again. "Oh, and Nikolas. . ."

"Yes?"

"Remember not to. . ."

"Touch anything? I know. I know." Then her legs disappeared from view.

* * *

"Don't touch anything. Do exactly what I say," Nikolas muttered beneath his breath as he plonked himself down a convenient block of rubble from one of the fallen pillars. Did she think he was still a child? Someone who couldn't be trusted to do anything without someone else looking over his shoulder the whole time?

It was ridiculous. He was eight years her senior; a respected archaeologist to boot. Not some clodding know-nothing student on his first dig. Which was how she was treating him. _So, are you going to let yourself be ordered around by some slip of a girl then Nikolas?_

Well. . . Hardly a slip of a girl.

_Damn, she was beautiful._

Not something you could avoid noticing really. For the first few days he had found her presence on the dig a huge distraction. It was hard to concentrate on the ground in front of you when you were much more interested in the woman working across the way. His work had suffered he was sure, and even now he wasn't what you could call totally relaxed around her.

She was very different from other beautiful women he had known – admittedly not many of them. Then again, he thought, she was also very different full stop. 

It almost seemed to him like she viewed her beauty as some kind of irritant – a subtle form of disability rather than an asset, which got in the way and kept her from being what she truly wanted.

He wasn't sure what made him think that. After all she always kept herself well groomed and looking her best – never tried to hide what she was. But it all seemed a bit like how a soldier fresh from bootcamp would maintain their gear and weapons – something that had become so drilled in that it was almost impossible _not_ to do.

His gaze dropped to that minuscule gap in the fallen rock. How long had she been gone? Four or five minutes? More? Less? 

A large part of his annoyance, he realised suddenly, stemmed from worry. Worry for her.

How could anyone bring themselves to crawl into that gap? He shuddered to think about it. Even if he hadn't been too large to fit there was nothing he could imagine on this earth that could persuade him to crawl inside that tiny space. Yet she hadn't so much as batted an eyelid. Crazy, like he'd said. Horrible images – of rocky shifting without warning; of being buried alive; trapped – played inside his head.

_Falling in love are we Dasky?_ That name she had called him in an effort to draw a rise. It hadn't honestly displeased him.

_No!_ A little too fast. A little too vehement.

_She'll tear your heart in half and discard it on the floor you know. A woman like that will never requite the feelings of a man like you._

_I'm not falling in love with her. She has far too objectionable a personality._ Who was he arguing with, he wondered?

He looked away from the hole, shining the torch she had left him around, peering at the ruined splendour that surrounded him. 

This place truly was amazing. He had meant every bit of what he'd said earlier. That a site like this could remain here, undiscovered in this condition. It almost beggared belief.

Certainly more exciting than cataloguing pottery shards, he admitted to himself with a slight grin. Even if he wasn't allowed to touch anything.

A slight sigh. This was more what he had imagined archaeology to be like as a boy. Exploring and finding spectacular ancient ruins – walking into the unknown and facing untold danger. To see things that no one else alive had ever seen. Not that he was disappointed by the reality of his profession. Quite the opposite in fact: he loved his work with a passion. It was just that. . . well, part of him sometimes wondered what it would have been like to have been born a century earlier, when archaeology really did resemble his boyhood imaginings.

Lara seemed to have managed to find a way of living that reality even today, and he couldn't help but feel slightly envious. Still, the danger part of it would probably get old really fast.

Suddenly he caught a small, stealthy sound right behind him – like a boot scuffing against stone. He started to turn, but felt a cold circle of metal press into the back of his neck and froze.

"Ah-ah, Mr. Puppy Dog. No sudden movements please. I wouldn't want to accidentally blow your head off." The voice had a heavy French accent. Nikolas could hear the scarcely contained laughter in it.

* * *

Lara's head emerged from the other side of the narrow gap and she drew in great gulping breaths of relief.

For all her earlier nonchalance to Nikolas, those last few minutes were not ones she'd care to repeat in a hurry. Every painfully slow inch of the way had been a fight against the urge to panic and even now she could feel the lingering ghost of it, clawing at her with cold fingers.

She prised herself free of the tight, constricting opening and stood up, feeling her leg muscles shaking beneath her. The worst part of it had been that she could hear the rock above her – creaking and whispering constantly, as if debating with itself when it should collapse.

The light of the torch beam showed her that she was covered from head to foot in red dust – her clothes, her limbs, even her hair was choked with it. There were abrasions on her knees and elbows and her breasts hurt – bruised and aching from the tight squeeze. 

_Damned things_. She'd contemplated reductive surgery several times in the past, once even going so far as to arrange an appointment at a clinic before chickening out at the last moment.

_Well, you're going to have to make a return trip through there very shortly._ Lara gritted her teeth. _No problem. No problem at all._

Ahead of her the passage continued, free of any further blockage. She started forward. Too quickly. Not paying the same degree of care and attention to her surroundings as she normally would have in her eagerness to put the fallen rock behind her.

Six or seven paces and she heard a crack like a pistol shot beneath the heel of her boot. Then the floor opened up beneath her.

A stifled cry was startled from her lips and her torch fell from her grasp, tumbling end over end into pitch darkness.

* * *

"W-Who are you?" The tremor in Nikolas's voice gave away the fear he felt as he looked up at the man looming over him.

A chuckle, seemingly of good humour. "You mean dearest Lara hasn't told you about me, Mr. Puppy Dog? I should feel offended I think. I thought the two of us were much, much closer than that." He paused, seeming to consider. "Maybe she didn't want you to feel jealous."

Nikolas just stared up at the man and felt his fear grow. That tanned, darkly handsome face with its shadow of black beard, currently split by a fierce, feral looking grin. Those dark, smouldering, dangerous looking eyes. He couldn't remember ever being in the presence of someone who scared him quite as much as this, simply through the way he stood; by his gestures and expressions. Everything about the man before him screamed of menace.

Not that he was a physical monster. 

He was perhaps slightly under six feet tall and lean rather than muscle-bound in build. But there was a tightly coiled energy about him. An air that would have had even those a foot taller and twice his bulk instinctively shying away. This was a caged-tiger of a man. And the lock on the cage door was hanging loose.

Suddenly he gave a low bow. "Pierre Du Pont at your service. Perhaps you have heard of me?"

Nikolas blanched. Yes, he had heard of Pierre Du Point all right.

"Ah, I see that you have." The Frenchman seemed amused. "You shouldn't believe all that you here though Mr. Puppy Dog."

On the evidence of the man in front of him Nikolas had no trouble whatsoever believing every single word of what he'd heard. And more. His gaze dropped to the pair of matt-black carbon steel pistols the Frenchman carried and he felt his gut clench.

Du Pont turned his back on him and bent down, inspecting the small hole Lara had crawled into several minutes ago. It was a perfect opportunity. He could pick up the piece of rubble beside him and bring it smashing down into the back of the man's skull. . . 

But no. How could you attack a man like this from behind? What if you failed?

"So dearest Lara went through here did she?" He traced the telltale scuffmarks in the dust. "Always the daring one, Lara. Always so brave and defiant." A low laugh. "Always second best."

Nikolas stared at Du Pont's back. There was an airbrushed picture of a naked blonde on the battered leather jacket he wore. It reminded him of the sort of picture that you saw painted on the side of American Flying Fortresses during World War II.

"W-What do you want with us?"

Pierre Du Pont looked round slowly. "With us?" He fixed Nikolas with a hard look that made him flinch backwards. "I don't want anything with 'us' as you put it. You. You are a momentary amusement who may prove useful as a hostage. Other than that you are nothing to me. No, I am here for exactly the same reason Lara is, as well you know."

Nikolas's confusion must have shown on his face.

"Ah, so she hasn't told you then. Interesting. Perhaps you are not as important to her as I thought, eh Mr. Puppy Dog?"

Nikolas didn't say anything.

"What I want – or rather, what my client has paid me to retrieve – is the immortal remains of one of the Erinyes."

Nikolas blinked in surprise. The immortal remains. . . "So you're nothing more than a mercenary, doing what you're paid for. An errand boy." He tried to look contemptuous rather than plain terrified.

Du Pont merely laughed. "Do not be so sniffy, Mr. Puppy dog. What do you think your good friend Lara is? She is being paid, just like me. She is working for a client, just like me. We are exactly the same, her and I. Except I am better than she is. And I am not hypocrite enough to pretend I am anything other than what I am. She just has nicer breasts than I do, and that fools people into thinking she is a nicer person."

"I think you're full of shit." Attempting to seem more defiant than he really was.

"Is that so?" Du Pont rose from his crouch, took a couple of paces forward and placed the barrel of one of his pistols against Nikolas's temple.

_Oh Christ. _Nikolas could feel himself shaking like a leaf, cold sweat trickling in rivulets down his body. Part of him wanted to beg; to blabber for forgiveness. Only the certainty that Du Pont despised weaklings kept a veneer of control in place. _Why didn't I just keep my big mouth shut?_

After several interminable seconds Du Pont removed the gun. "You should remember one thing. At the moment I am god. I can extinguish you like that." Nikolas jumped as the Frenchman snapped his fingers loudly in front of his face. "And I eat puppy dogs like you alive."

Suddenly there was a distant, muffled crash, as of collapsing stone. It came from beyond the blocked archway.

Both of them turned to stare at the small opening. To Nicholas it felt as though a skeletal hand had clenched tight around his heart. _No Lara. Please no. . ._

"Dear me. It seems Mademoiselle Croft has had a slight accident." Pierre Du Pont gave an indifferent shrug. "Such a shame. I was so looking forward to renewing our acquaintance."

In that moment the terror inside Nikolas crystallised into icy cold hate. When he spoke his voice sounded surprisingly calm. "If I were you I'd very much hope she survived that." _She must have done, mustn't she?_

"Oh yes Mr. Puppy Dog? And why on earth should I hope that?" The smile he offered Nikolas was half sneer.

"Because it looks very much to me like your shoulders are too broad to fit through that opening. If she's dead you're not going to be able to get what you came for."

* * *

Lara's hands caught hold of an outcropping of rock about six feet down. The breath left her body in a whoosh as she slammed against unforgiving stone and her booted feet scrabbled desperately for grip. As she tried to suck air back into her lungs she felt her fingers start to lose their grip, arm muscles straining. 

What lay below her she didn't know. Her torch had broken apart somewhere beneath, its light flickering out to leave her suspended in inky darkness, unable to see a thing. All things considered, finding out first hand probably wouldn't be something she'd enjoy.

One of her feet secured a foothold. She managed to arrest her inexorable slide as some of the weight was taken from her arms. For a time she just clung there, breathing deeply, forcing down the fear and panic welling up within her. Forcing herself to be calm and cool.

_Shit. Not to be too delicate about it._

Unless you have experienced it the blackness of a cave is difficult to imagine. The darkest night is bright by comparison, and simply shutting your eyes is not at all the same thing. You have the choice of opening _them_ again.

She was going to have to climb completely blind, she concluded quickly. The flares in her pockets were out of reach, and even if she could get to one she could hardly climb very well whilst holding it.

Six feet, she told herself. Not far at all. All she had to do was remain calm and take it nice and slowly.

_Well, what are you waiting for then?_ The longer she waited, just hanging around, the more tired her arms would get: the harder the climb would be.

Slowly, carefully, she lifted one hand free from the outcropping and felt along the rock face. After a few seconds she located a narrow crevice, feeling along it and testing to see if it was going to hold her weight. _Okay, next hand._

Seconds ticked. No other handhold presented itself. She fought the urge to hurry. Finally she located a small protuberance. Not ideal, but enough. _Now for your feet_.

It went on like that, slowly and systematically. Moving one limb at a time, making sure it was secure, then moving another limb. Climbing upwards by painstaking inches. Eventually – it felt like hours, but was probably only minutes – she reached the lip of the pit she had opened up and pulled herself back onto solid ground.

_Okay, that's the one fuck up you're allowed today. Next one kills you._

Lara took one of the flares from her pocket and turned her head aside to shield her eyes from the sudden brilliance as she ignited it. It was several long moments before her eyes adjusted to being able to see again.

Behind her about ten feet of passageway had collapsed – easy enough to jump over if she wanted. Go back or go on? Six flares – that gave her about eighteen minutes of light. All other sources of illumination she had were back with Nikolas, in her pack. 

If she was prudent she would go back, return to camp and come here again tomorrow – properly kitted out and alone this time, with nothing to distract her.

_But when was I ever prudent?_ And there was also the nagging knowledge that going back would mean at least three more trips through that narrow, crumbling passageway in the rock fall behind her. _Not that it scares me, or anything._

_So, nine minutes._

Lara started walking. Each step was precise and measured, exactly the same length as the one before it. She kept a careful count inside her head. If it became necessary she would be able to retrace her path in perfect darkness.

Around her the walls and floor became natural cave again, rough and uneven. A hint of doubt crept in. What if this wasn't the right way? It had, after all, only been guesswork on her part – a feeling. But it _was_ the focal point of the previous chamber, this passageway. It made sense that it should be this way.

What made sense to a modern 20th century mind didn't necessarily make sense to someone born several millennia earlier however. She knew that very well. You couldn't make these broad assumptions.

Nevertheless, she kept on gong. Best to find out one way or another tonight if possible.

The light from the flare began to flicker and dance madly. Still no sign of anything ahead of her except uniform reddish-stone cave. Sputtering, the light died, plunging her into total darkness once more. Calmly Lara took out flare number two and continued.

Minutes passed. It became strangely lulling, counting out each carefully measured stride, and she had to make a considerable effort to maintain the edge of her concentration.

Then, in front of her, the cave opened up again. She stopped, staring into the darkness ahead of her, but the light from the flare didn't penetrate far enough to make out more than hints. She throttled down the surge of premature excitement, forcing herself to focus on the ground ahead, looking for any signs of traps like the pitfall that had almost claimed her.

It was some kind of grotto. The incandescent light of the flare cast strange moving shadows across the walls. Some of them resembled distorted faces, gazing down at her. Lara dismissed that momentary impression as a figment of overactive imagination. 

Over to her left there was a second opening leading away into darkness, but for the moment she ignored it. Her attention was fixed on what lay at the chamber's heart.

An altar, carved from a natural shelf of rock. Faded images were engraved across its surface – eagles wings and snakes and stylised flowers of a type she didn't immediately recognise: other things that were too badly worn to properly make out.

Standing over it was a sweeping archway of stone, surmounted by a carved face – like the one she had seen on the pillar earlier, only in considerably better condition. Those blank stone eyes, gazing blindly down at her were fierce – strangely intimidating – and as she stepped forward she suppressed a slight shiver that had nothing to do with air temperature.

Sitting in the centre of the altar was the object she'd come for.

Lara hadn't known what to expect. She remembered talking about it with David, standing together in the gazebo of his old estate as the sun set, gazing out across the secluded lake and sipping champagne. 

_David_. Her employer. Also her friend. Eighteen years her senior. Almost old enough to be her father. 

And her lover. 

She hadn't meant for that last part to happen. But she'd worked out by now that life rarely went according to plan. At least not _her_ plan. It wouldn't last; in her experience these things never did. Just for the moment though it was – well _nice_ seemed too anodyne a word.

Lara pushed thoughts of David aside. _Later_. A figurine, depicting a slender, graceful looking naked woman with wings, made from some sort of badly verdigrissed metal. Neither David nor herself had guessed exactly this, but it couldn't really be anything else.

She leant across the altar to get a closer look; saw that there were traces of some sort of decayed material, both on and around the carved shelf of stone. By the look of it, it was some sort of desiccated vegetable matter. Her imagination conjured up garlands of flowers – lilies, hyacinth, and narcissus – left as offerings, and she almost fancied she could smell a trace of their perfume, lingering in the dusty air. There was nothing of course. Too much time had passed.

There didn't appear to be any way the figurine could be trapped. As far as she could tell the shelf was a seemless block of stone, carved from rock already in place. No possibility of counterweight mechanisms, or anything else to judge from what she saw.

_The proof of the pudding, as they say. . ._

Lara lifted the figurine from its seat, ready to leap back to safety if anything should happen. 

Nothing did.

It was lighter than it looked. Lighter than it should have been, if it were solid. Which meant it had to be hollow. Lara felt her excitement grow, turning the figurine slowly over in her hands. _Yes, if it was hollow there couldn't be any doubt. . ._

A momentary feeling of strangeness swept over her, similar to what she had felt entering this complex of caves. For a brief disconcerting instant she had the impression that the figurine was laughing at her.

Then the flare flickered once and went out.

* * *

"What is your name, Mr. Puppy Dog?"

Pierre Du Pont and Nikolas Daskalopulu sat facing one another. Nikolas's back was to the archway with its rock fall and its narrow passageway through the stone, and Du Pont's gaze seemed more interested in that than in Nikolas.

It gave Nikolas just a glimmer of hope. Du Pont's actions suggested that he didn't believe that Lara had died in that crash they had had heard, whatever he might say.

"What does it matter to you what my name is?" Nikolas wondered.

Du Pont shrugged. "Very little," he admitted. "But I do like to know the names of those I kill. It seems more courteous that way. Tell me or not. I'm sure you will have some identification on your well fed body that will give me the same information."

Nikolas shuddered. The casual matter-of-factness of the man was absolutely terrifying. For a moment his mouth felt too dry to responded. "N-Nikolas. Professor Nikolas Daskalopulu."

"Ah, a Professor. A learned man. I am humbled by your presence." He inclined his head mockingly, his smile unpleasant – a cat toying with a mouse. "Professor Puppy Dog."

"W-Why do you call me that?"

"Puppy Dog?" Du Pont raised an eyebrow, as if surprised that Nikolas needed to ask. "Because that is what you are. Small and soft and helpless. Innocent of the ways of the world." He displayed his teeth, shark-like.

The anger Nikolas felt at the man's contemptuous dismissal was not enough to overcome his fear. _Maybe I'll show you that even a puppy dog has teeth_. But it was a hollow thought, and he knew it. Against the man sitting in front of him he _was_ a puppy dog.

"Y-You said you were going to kill me? W-Why wait? What good is a puppy dog to you?"

Du Pont laughed. "You are so eager to die? I thought you would be busy planning some futile last-ditch escape attempt. In answer to your question, I know dear Lara too well to assume that the noise we heard signalled her demise. I will wait a few hours to see if you prove useful as a hostage. After that I'm afraid you will become too much of a burden."

"You're scared to face a girl alone, without the advantage of a hostage? Obviously you are not the same man I had heard about."

Another laugh. "That is supposed to be an insult Professor Puppy Dog? A remarkably unenlightened and sexist attitude for this day and age. In my business you quickly learn that you take whatever advantage you can grab and use it to its fullest extent. So don't try playing to my sense of pride or honour. I murdered both a long time ago."

Du Pont seemed amused rather than offended though, and was apparently in the mood to talk. Nikolas didn't have much choice but to listen. 

"Has Lara told you about how the two of us first met? No, no I forget, you said she never mentioned me at all. That grieves me. It really does. After all we've been through. . ."

* * *

Lara heard voices ahead of her and froze.

She was about two-thirds of the way through the narrow tunnel in the fallen rock, in the process of slithering forward on her belly. One of her hands, stretched out in front of her, cradled the figurine carefully, trying to ensure that it came to no harm. The other was being used to help pull herself forwards. No flares, although there was still one left in her pocket. There was, however, just enough light to see the vaguest hint of her surroundings by, filtering through from up ahead.

Two voices. So it wasn't just Nikolas talking to himself.

She cursed silently. Had she misjudged him that badly? Let the guileless enthusiasm of his exterior lull her? 

_Don't jump to conclusions_. At the moment all she could tell was that there were two voices. The words – and the identities of the speakers – were impossible to ascertain.

After several seconds straining in vain to hear, she started to inch ever so slowly forward again. Stealth, with the full the full length of her body pressed against the floor and considerable less than inch of clearance above her, was next to impossible. Hopefully though, the voices would cover up the sounds of her movement. _Hopefully_.

_Damn._ It wasn't so much the French accent as the undertone of black, mocking humour that gave him away.

Lara instantly froze again, able to hear her heartbeat thunderously loud in her ears.

It shouldn't have come as a surprise. She'd been watching for him, and part of her had been expecting him to leap out of the woodwork from the moment her flight had landed in Athens. David had warned that 'others' might be after the same prize as them. 'Others' had a nasty habit of turning out to be Pierre Du Pont. With this devil you didn't even have to speak of him.

Expectation doesn't in any way prepare you for being trapped like a rat.

_What the hell am I going to do now?_ Backwards left her with three minutes of useable light, not enough materials to improvise a torch even if she resorted to tearing her clothing into strips, and no way of knowing if the other passageway she'd seen led anywhere in any case. Forwards. Forwards she didn't like to think about. Fish in a barrel didn't even begin to cover it.

_Déjà vu all over again._

The last time he'd got the drop on her had been in Brazil.

She remembered feeling quite cheerful at the time. The crystal skull she'd been hired to recover was nestling safely in her pack, and she'd managed to escape the trap infested tunnel complex without so much as a scratch. Granted she'd been a little out of breath from a race against a rather large boulder, but it wasn't any fun if there was _no_ danger.

Best of all though she'd spotted the ambush before she'd walked straight into it, creeping around the side and coming up, unseen, right behind her would be hunter, trusty Browning pistols in hand.

_'Afternoon Pierre, fancy meeting you here. Nice day for a jungle stroll isn't it? Although trying to spy on a lady is generally considered bad manners'_ Oh yes, she'd been full of it. For once she was going to get the better of the bastard and it felt good. Very good. _'Now hand me those pistols. There's a dear.'_

The venomous look he'd shot her way as he obeyed only made her feel even better.

That flight of gaudy, jewel bright macaws bursting from the jungle canopy had distracted her for the merest fraction of a second. Plenty enough time for Du Pont to pull the tiny .22 calibre hold-out revolver with its ridiculous looking two-inch barrel from an ankle holster and shoot her through the shoulder however.

She'd taken three steps backwards in numb shock, scarcely comprehending what had happened yet. The third step had taken her over the edge of a ravine with a sheer two-hundred foot drop.

If the fast flowing river hadn't been swollen to twice its normal height by heavy rainfall she'd have been smashed apart on jagged rocks. As it was she barely managed to keep hold of consciousness as she hit.

The time in the water was a blur. All she could remember was raging brown, sediment heavy water all around her – throbbing agony from her shoulder.

Eventually she'd been washed up onto a muddy riverbank, coughing her lungs out and too weak to move. The bullet wound felt as if it was on fire. How long she'd lain there like that she didn't know.

As the shadow loomed over her, she'd only been able to lash out ineffectually and had heard _his_ laughter, resounding in her ears. She felt strong hands going through her pack, lifting the crystal skull out. Then she was rolled unceremoniously over onto her back.

Du Pont grasped hold of her chin, tilting her face up towards his. He'd leaned so close that she'd been able to smell his breath, and it seemed like he'd been chewing cloves. _'Once again we meet, Lady Lara. And once again I have the best of you.' _Oh, so mocking. _'You should have learned by now that there is nothing you possess that I cannot take away from you. For now I choose to leave you with your life. Though I will take that too, when it suits me.'_ Then he'd kissed her, his tongue invading her mouth. For a moment she'd been too surprised to react.

He'd pulled back, laughing, just before her teeth clashed shut. Then he'd shoved her back down in the mud again and walked away.

She'd groped for her pistols in the holsters at her hips, so furious that she wouldn't have hesitated over shooting him in the back. The pistols, though, were lost in the river.

Although the surgeon had done a good job and there was hardly any scarring she could still feel that bullet wound if she thought about it. Worse, she could still feel that kiss.

The second voice _was_ Nikolas. Lara hadn't been able to tell for sure up to now. Her first thought was relief that he was still alive. "What are you doing?" She heard him say. The raw fear in his voice was clearly audible, and her second thought was that he hadn't betrayed her after all.

Then she heard footsteps – a light padding tread – coming towards her.

_Oh shit!_ She tried to reach the pistols belted around her waist but the passageway was much too narrow to allow that. Inwardly she cursed herself for an idiot. She should have been carrying one of them when she'd entered the tunnel.

An unpleasantly familiar bearded face popped into view about five feet ahead of her, upside down from her perspective. It leered at her. "Everything okay there Lara? I haven't caught you in a tight spot have I?"

"Very droll Pierre. I see you still have that wonderful sense of humour." She tried to hide the dread that rose up inside her. One of those ugly black magnums Du Pont always carried was pointed straight at her face and in the current situation it was literally more difficult to miss her than to hit.

"Pass me the. . ." He hesitated a moment, apparently checking out exactly what she did have. "Figurine you have there. If you would be so kind."

"Do you think I'm stupid? If I pass you the figurine what's to stop you just shooting me?"

He grinned. "Absolutely nothing. But of course there's also absolutely nothing to stop me shooting you now and then taking the figurine anyway. Is there?"

"Let me get out of here. Then I'll hand you the figurine. That sound fair?"

The grin turned into a sigh. "Lara, I am not a patient man. Besides, why would I want to shoot you? When it comes to it I would much rather fuck you." A broad leer. "Why do we have to be enemies Lara? It would be so much better for us to be friends, working together rather than trying to kill each other. We would be unstoppable, you and I, don't you think? And I'm sure we would make fabulous lovers. I think our problem is that we are both too much alike. Too much pride and not enough sense." He laughed.

As he spoke Lara took the opportunity to slither another few inches nearer the exit and Du Pont. She was very aware of the rock around her creaking and grumbling, little cascades of dust falling periodically on her back. 

_We are nothing alike, you bastard._ "If those are the alternatives on offer Pierre, I'd really much rather you went ahead and shot me. At least then I wouldn't have to listen to you spouting such garbage."

Du Pont's expression went suddenly cold, all hint of humour disappearing from his eyes. "You know what your problem is Lara?"

"I'm quite sure that you're going to tell me Pierre. Isn't that what 'friends' are for?" Another few inches closer to him.

"You're too damned arrogant So self-satisfied, with that smug British sense of superiority of yours. You think you're so much better than everybody else." She saw his grip shift on the magnum, his finger tightening fractionally on the trigger. The bullet would go straight through the middle of her face. "The figurine. Now. Otherwise I'll get to see if your brains are the same colour as an honest Frenchman's."

Lara recognised the finality in his voice. Any more attempts at bluffing or stalling would earn her a bullet, it said. "Take it then."

"Push it towards me." Du Pont's arm, reaching inside the gap came up about a foot short.

"If it topples it'll be damaged."

Du Pont grunted. "Then crawl forward. And be quick. My trigger finger is developing an itch."

"Thank you." 

Lara felt a surge of anguish as he took it from her fingers – felt the urge to grip the figurine tightly. But it was too late, already gone from her grasp.

Then his face and the magnum disappeared as he stood up, and all Lara could see were his booted feet and denim-clad legs. She felt her gut clench – started crawling forward as fast as she could. Now that the figurine was gone she was as good as naked.

"Since you love these ruins so much," Du Pont was saying, "These dusty underground places, with their traps and treasures, and their crumbling dead, I think it only fitting that you should remain down here always. Don't you?"

Suddenly his foot lashed out, kicking at the tight packed stone of the tunnel opening. Chunks of rock fell free and the rain of dust falling upon Lara intensified. A second kick, and more rock fell loose. 

Lara could hear the stone around her creaking and groaning, and knew that a couple of more solid connections by Du Pont would send the whole lot – tons of it – crashing down on top of her. 

She pulled herself forward desperately, abrading the skin from her already grazed knees and elbows. Her hands reached ahead to grab the edge of the opening and give herself better purchase.

"Ahhh!" Lara's right hand exploded in blinding pain as Du Pont's boot connected with it, and she drew it back quickly, overcome by a coughing fit as she accidentally inhaled the rock dust in the air around her.

Du Pont's leg drew back for a fourth kick.

The blow never landed. 

Sitting forgotten, Nikolas had finally – when he saw that Du Pont intended to bury Lara alive – managed to overcome the paralysing terror that filled him at the thought of trying to stand up to the man. The full weight of his not inconsiderable frame landed on Pierre Du Pont's back.

Lara heard her French rival swear and saw him stagger backwards from the opening. He didn't go down though. Then there was a deafening roar, resounding in her ears. Du Pont's Magnum going off.

_Nikolas_. The thought left her numb. Debris was falling all around her in thick clouds now, making it difficult breath or see. _I'm going to kill the bastard_. That thought kept her driving forwards through the last few feet, ignoring the throbbing pain of her injured hand. This time Du Pont wasn't going to walk away.

Coughing and spluttering she pulled free of the opening.

Nikolas wasn't dead. The two men were still locked together in struggle. Du Pont's pistol had gone off unintentionally when Nikolas had grabbed him and the bullet had flown wide. As she watched though, Du Pont caught Nikolas with a clubbing blow to the face. 

The Greek archaeologist staggered backwards, nose broken and flowering blood. As he collapsed to the floor Du Pont kicked him savagely in the gut.

As the Frenchman drew back for a second, possibly fatal blow, Lara drew her pistol and fired. Without time to set herself and still fighting down coughing fits from the dust she'd inhaled, her aim was off. She only managed to graze his upper arm, the bullet going on to slam into one of the cracked pillars.

It was enough to distract him from Nikolas however.

As she fired again he darted for cover. This bullet missed too, kicking up splinters of stone from the floor. Then he was gone from the circle of light cast by Nikolas's fallen torch, vanished into the shadows and the mass of other pillars. 

Lara's gaze searched for signs of movement, but there was nothing to be seen. The only sounds she could hear came from Nikolas – a low, pain-filled groaning as he clutched at his stomach. Du Pont had vanished.

He'd dropped the figurine when Nikolas had jumped him. It was lying, toppled over onto its side on the floor between her and Nikolas. She started towards it.

A low chuckle came from somewhere to her left.

Lara threw herself flat, feeling the heat and draft of the bullets passing inches above her back. They slammed into the rubble filled archway behind her, and with a great roar the passage she'd been inside just a few seconds earlier collapsed. 

Both pistols in hand now, she returned fire at the spot where the muzzle flash from Du Pont's magnums had momentarily lit up. All she managed to hit was another badly cracked pillar that looked on the verge of collapse itself.

Silence again. She scurried quickly out of the circle of light. If she stayed where she was, she'd be a sitting a duck. A bullet chased after the sound of her footsteps but only found empty air.

Lara again returned fire at the spot where the bullet had come from. Again failed to hit Du Pont.

Another low laugh. "Just like old times hey, Lara? Cat and mouse."

She caught herself from firing towards where the voice had come from, knowing from experience that Du Pont was already gone. Her spare clips were still in her pack, back somewhere near Nikolas. The only ammo she had immediate access to was that already inside her guns. The Frenchman, she was sure, didn't have the same limitations.

_This time though Du Pont, I'm the cat and you're the mouse._

"I wonder, Lara." This time, as expected, his voice came from a completely different spot. "What would you do to stop me putting a bullet in your new boyfriend's more than ample gut?"

She froze, in the process of creeping silently round to get a better angle on where Du Pont's voice was coming from. A glance back showed her Nikolas, sitting up now, propped against one of the pillars. He was horrendously exposed – a target the Frenchman could hardly fail to hit.

In sudden decision Lara rose from her position, sprinting towards the point she had heard the Frenchman's voice coming from and deliberately making as much noise as she could. "Du Pont!"

Bullets filled the air around her in a buzzing storm. The only things that kept her from being perforated was the darkness and the speed she was moving. Still, several of them came mightily close.

She rolled forward, behind the cover of another of the pillars just as another volley pumped right into it. Then deceptive calm fell.

A glance showed her that Nikolas was gone from the circle of light from the fallen torch. She stifled a sigh of relief.

For a time everything went still. Lara could hear her own breathing, loud and ragged in her ears, and beside her the pillar was groaning.

_The pillar was groaning?_

Du Pont's bullets, obviously weakening its already fragile structural integrity. From the sound of it, it was going to come crashing down at any second. She strongly suspected she didn't want to be crouching down beside the thing when it did.

A faint scuffing sound came from near where the last burst of gunfire had originated from. Du Pont on the move again.

Instead of launching into another no doubt futile attack, Lara actually holstered one of her pistols instead. She drew the one remaining flare from her pocket and weighed it up for a moment. If she misjudged his position. . . If that noise had just been a trick to lure her out. . .

_If. If. If._

Bottom line was that Du Pont was a master of this particular game. He'd been playing it for years, and he didn't lose. 

So she needed to alter the rules.

With a deep breath she lit the flare, its brilliance blinding. Immediately she lobbed it in a slow, high arc through the air towards where she had heard the tiny scuffing sound.

Shots rang out, but they were aimed at the flare rather than her, and went well wide.

Lara popped up out of cover, the one pistol held steady in both hands. 

Du Pont was right there, a wavering silhouette in the flickering flare light. His magnums were aimed several feet to one side, at the position where the flare had landed. For an instant their eyes locked together. Du Point bared his teeth at her in a smile-come-snarl. His guns swung like lightning back round towards her.

She shot him.

The bullet ripped into the top of his thigh. In the chaos of a combat situation you always, always aim low. That's what she'd been taught.

Lara heard his grunt of pain – saw the spurt of blood, almost black in the gloom – as he collapsed, sprawling on his back, yards from the nearest cover. Steadying herself, focusing coldly on the task in hand, she carefully aimed the second, killing shot.

Beside and above her there was a horrendously loud, screeching crack.

Instinctively she dove full length, unable to see whether the bullet she loosed struck its target. A huge chunk of rock crashed down, hitting exactly the spot where she'd just been crouching, making the ground shake.

More rock fell all around Lara as she scrambled desperately backwards, a chunk the size of her fist slamming hard into her thigh and deadening her leg. Then the entire pillar was toppling in a thunderous avalanche of stone, right between her and Du Pont.

She pulled herself to her feet, limping badly, choking clouds of dust rising all around her. A further great chunk of rock broke from the ceiling, crashing to the floor about ten feet to the left. She could hear several other pillars around her creaking and groaning, as if they too were going to collapse at any second in sympathy.

"Nikolas!" Lara hurried towards the circle of torchlight where her backpack and the figurine had fallen. An intermittent series of crashes rang out behind her, more rock continuing to break loose.

A shadow moved in the periphery of her vision as she was pulling her backpack on.

"Bloody hell." Lara jerked her pistol to one side, letting out an explosive breath of relief. "Don't sneak up on me like that." She scooped the torch up.

Just then another of the pillars gave way, toppling sideways with an ear splitting roar. The entire ceiling started to fall in.

"I think," Lara said, grabbing hold of Nikolas's elbow. "That running would be a very good idea."

* * *

Wheezing for breath like a ninety-year old with a collapsed lung, Nikolas stumbled to a halt, falling to his hands and knees on the scree-covered slope. Behind them there was a final muted rumbling crash, followed by gaping silence.

"Sorry. . . can't. . . go. . .on."

Lara took pity on the rotund archaeologist and stopped, sitting down on the slope beside him as he gasped for air. She still had one of her pistols drawn, and watched the cave entrance carefully. There was no sign of anyone following them though.

After a while she reached behind herself and took the figurine she'd recovered from her pack, holding it up before her so that it caught the last of the fading sunlight.

"So tell me Lara." Nikolas seemed finally to have recovered his breath. "Is every day like this with you?"

"Oh no." She shook her head absently, as if her thoughts were elsewhere. "Sometimes it actually gets quite exciting."

Not quite knowing why, she lay back on the slope and started laughing.

End of Part 1

   [1]: mailto:trad50@yahoo.co.uk



	2. Part 2 - Alecto

****

Hell Hath No Fury Part 2: 

Alecto 

by Tim Radley

[trad50@yahoo.co.uk][1]

Tomb Raider, Lara Croft, her image and likeness are trademark and copyright © of EIDOS Interactive and Core Design. No infringement or challenge to these copyrights is intended.

This story contains violence and strong language. 

This is the second part of a story started in "Hell Hath no Fury Part 1 – Megaera" and it will probably make more sense if you've read this first. I'd be extremely grateful for any feedback you might have – either positive or negative.

Part II-Alecto (the Unceasing)

"An explosion. . ."

The newsreader's voice snapped Lara out of her reverie, focusing her attention on the events of here and now rather than those of six years ago.

". . . in the early hours of this morning ripped through the upper floor of the European headquarters of Charron Corporation – an American investment banking company. It is understood there has been at least one fatality and a several other casualties, although as yet the emergency services have not released any official figures. So far police have refused to comment on speculation that this explosion is related to terrorist activity, and the possible start of a 'Real' IRA bombing campaign on the mainland. We can now go over to Seera Gundan, who is at the scene. . ."

Lara stopped listening. Nothing to do with what had happened to her yesterday. Obviously that wasn't considered important enough. A slight smile at herself, mocking that momentary feeling of annoyance.

She placed the figurine carefully down on the desk, forcing herself to study it with clinical detachment. It wasn't, she saw, completely identical to the artefact that she and Nikolas had recovered in Greece those years ago. The pose was noticeably different, as were the markings of verdigris and decay. But it was quite clearly another of the Erinyes, and from the design – same material, same size, and if she was any judge, same sculptor even – it was clearly related to the figure they had recovered.

Alecto or Tisiphone? Assuming her own had, after all been Megaera. She'd never been able to determine that completely to her satisfaction. _You're not going to just tell me I guess, are you?_

A quiet sigh. _Why now, of all times?_ She'd almost managed to forget about it. Not that she would ever entirely manage to forget. . . Melancholy crept up on her. She shook her head and tried to force the feeling away. _In the past_.

She thought about Nikolas instead – Dasky, as he'd always be to part of her. It was a safer subject. They'd become good friends after that incident with Pierre Du Pont, and had worked together on digs on a couple of more occasions that same year. She hadn't seen him since, she realised, slightly shocked. There had been numerous phone conversations, and regular lengthy correspondence – birthday presents and Christmas cards; that sort of thing. But it was six years since she'd actually seen him in the flesh.

She'd have to call him. 

Now that she was getting older she'd come to appreciate the few good friends she did have rather more than she once had. It wouldn't do to lose touch with another one.

_But best leave it till after I've stopped being chased by a group of irate mercenaries, eh?_

The radio again: ". . .In other news, it is now known that a total of twelve people have been shot dead on an archaeological dig on the Greek Island of Ayios Yéoryios. . ."

That gripped Lara's attention hard. _Jesus Christ_.

". . . local police are investigating the possibility that the November 17th anarchist group, who have been active in the area in recent months, maybe responsible for the atrocity. Three Britons are known to be among the dead. . ."

_Coincidence?_ Her gaze touched the figurine again and the penny finally dropped.

_Idiot_. It should have been obvious from the moment she saw what was in holdall, but she'd been too busy reminiscing.

Somebody was collecting statues.

One from a London safety deposit box, which now sat in front off her.

One from an archaeological dig site in Greece.

One in the secret treasure chamber of her house.

Lara was on her feet in a shot, stuffing the figurine back into the green holdall. Then she was leaving the office at a run, the door hanging open behind her.

If she was quick then maybe she would get there in time. . .

* * *

"They've failed."

"Luke?" There was a slight questioning note in Claudia's voice. By her standards it was a glaring breach in her usual façade of icy calm.

His one eye focused back on his surroundings from whatever realm it had been in. For once he wasn't wearing his dark glasses and its colour could be seen – a mundane, washed out sort of green. A mess of scar tissue surrounded the glass orb in his other socket and it looked slightly strange – he hadn't quite got the hang of moving it in step with its partner yet.

"The _Hrizu_," he continued at length. "They have failed."

A tiny flicker of surprise from Claudia. One thing she knew was that the _Hrizu_ never failed. She waited silently for her boss to clarify.

"They are not anywhere to found. They do not answer my call. I cannot feel even a hint of their presence." For the briefest of instants a snarl twisted across his face. It quickly transformed into a cheerful smile. "They have been either banished or destroyed."

"How? Surely Hsu Yi could not. . ."

"Hsu Yi did not!" Luke Charron sucked in a deep breath; calmed himself. "The _Hrizu_ are quite beyond the capabilities of my pet thief – _former_ pet thief"

They were sitting in a Clerkenwell restaurant, eating breakfast, the only two people in sight. Claudia had had the owner open the place up, especially for them. The staff were all in the kitchen carefully out of earshot, and the place was shut to other customers.

Luke Charron toyed with his fork. "_Her_ on the other hand. It would be well within _Her_ range of abilities. She is after all a god. Of a sort" His smile became a grin. "It does at least make things interesting." 

Unspoken, but implied, was that interesting was a very different thing to good.

Claudia said nothing. He wasn't really talking to her, instead verbally going over things inside his head. He would have been surprised if she had spoken.

"Now, if you've just woken up after three millennia of enforced hibernation, what is the first thing you do, hmmh?" Luke Charron ate some more of the scrambled eggs from his plate. "Me, I know I'd be hungry. Very, very hungry."

Claudia's mobile trilled, cutting off his train of thought. He watched as she drew the phone from the inside pocket of her jacket. "Claudia Dumane."

She listened for a few seconds, then switched off the talk button. "It's Mr. Lomax. He's saying that he's encountered some unforeseen difficulties. That he's afraid he's going to have to postpone today's handover."

The fine lines around Charron's good eye tightened. He gestured to Claudia to pass the phone over.

"Ah, Mr. Lomax, how nice to hear from you again. Now what's this I hear about postponement? I'm afraid that isn't going to be acceptable." He listened, and after Lomax had finished, grunted. "Would you care to expand on 'not currently in our possession' Mr. Lomax? I have to say that sounds worrying."

He continued to listen, expression growing perceptibly grimmer with every passing second. "Lets cut the bullshit shall we Mr. Lomax? I am quite certain you're doing everything in your power to rectify the situation. However, I'd like very much to know what happened. Without any evasions if you'd be so good."

By the time Lomax had finished speaking this time Luke Charron's expression suggested that he wanted to throw the phone through the restaurant window. It took rather more effort than normal for him to gloss the rage over with a façade of calm.

"Okay Mr. Lomax, I can assure you I am not pleased. Quite the opposite of pleased in fact. But shouting your ear off doesn't seem to me to be a very productive expenditure of my energy. So I'll say simply this. . . Don't interrupt please. . . You have twenty-four hours to recover the item and see it safely into my possession. If, at the end of that time I still do not have said item I will assume you are incapable of delivering and take matters into my own hands. Then I will make sure all loose ends are thoroughly cleaned up. Is that clear Mr. Lomax? Absolutely no ambiguities? Good. I hope to hear from you again shortly. Next time with rather better news." Without waiting for a reply, he cut Lomax off.

After a moment Luke Charron burst into peals of uproarious laughter.

"Luke?" Claudia enquired as the laughter continued for almost a minute, unabated.

The laughter ceased as abruptly as if someone had flicked a switch. "Ah the irony of it Claudia. The delicious irony. I can appreciate a good joke. Even if this one happens to be at my expense."

At her blank expression he explained: "Croft has Alecto. When I've gone to such trouble to steal Megaera from her. And since my thief has proved less than reliable, I am now in a worse position than when I started." He shook his head. "You were right Claudia. I should have just killed her to start with. It would have saved a lot of trouble. Could have beens. Should have beens." Another laugh. "I will not be making the same mistake twice."

"Is there anything you wish me to do?"

Charron held Claudia's flat, blue-eyed gaze. She was offering to take care of the Croft problem personally. 

"I appreciate the offer. I really do. But not quite at this time. As I said, I will give Lomax the opportunity to make amends for his slip. There are, however, another couple of little details you could take care of for me."

She inclined her head. "You know I will do absolutely anything you wish of me, Luke."

"Yes, and I can't tell you how much your loyalty means to me Claudia." He beamed at her. "If you would be so kind, I would like you to contact our sources within the boys in blue – the bobbies on the beat." He laughed at the expression, strange with his New York accent. "Have them look out for any strange occurrences – bodies with claw-marks; strange suicides; perps who appear to be mentally disturbed. Anything like that"

"Of course."

That was a given. "And if you could, I'd like you to find me another vessel. I have some ceremonial activities I need to take care of."

* * *

Lomax listened to the dead tone for several seconds after Charron severed the connection. He was staring off at nothing out of the windscreen of the new car they'd acquired – an Audi A4.

_Fear_. If you've ever served in the military and been under enemy fire then fear quickly becomes like an old friend. Right now the old friend was back big time, and Lomax wasn't particularly glad to see it.

"Didn't go well I take it?" Langer, the Australian, broke the silence. Langer never was comfortable when he couldn't hear the sound of someone's voice. Preferably his own.

Lomax saw his own hand shake fractionally as he put the phone down. "How the hell d'you think it went Langer?"

Langer looked away from Lomax's reflection in the rearview mirror – chastened.

"I quote here, for your benefit Langer. 'You have twenty-four hours to recover the item and see it safely into my possession. If, at the end of that time I still do not have said item I will assume you are incapable of delivering and take matters into my own hands. Then I will make sure all loose ends are thoroughly cleaned up.'"

"Fucking asshole." The muttered words came from Travis.

"Still, we've stood up to bastards like this before haven't we?" Langer tried to sound confident. "If he wants to get arsey about it. . ."

"Then we're as good as dead." Lomax tried to keep cool. He reminded himself that none of the others except Hicks had seen what the One-Legged Man could do when properly motivated. And Hicks. . . well since Angola, and the sudden onset of religion, Hicks no longer seemed afraid of anything.

"Why don't we just kill the miserable fuck first?" Langer wanted to know.

"It's been tried," Lomax replied shortly. It wasn't something you could explain unless you had experienced it firsthand, he thought bitterly. The One-Legged man turned him into a coward. No getting around it. Realisation didn't inspire bravery though. 

The thought of trying to kill him. . . He shook his head.

"Not by us it hasn't."

A hint of the old bravado there, Lomax thought. When they had all known they were invincible – that no one could stop them. _Where did we go wrong?_

Angola was the short answer. When they had lost Corwin, and Hicks had been turned into a human wreck. That had been a knife wound to their collective gut, and it was still bleeding. 

His gaze fixed on Travis. _Cousin Travis._

Another part of the problem. He wasn't a tenth of the man Corwin had been. Maybe not even a hundredth. In fact he was looking more and more of a parasite on their spirit. He had to go. Simple as that. Lomax gritted his teeth. _But he's blood. Your own_. He remembered his father. _You always look after your own, no matter what_. No matter what. 

_Not the fucking time._ After this was sorted, he'd speak to him. Lay it all on the line. Travis would shape up. _Who am I trying to kid?_

And then there was Simon.

Lomax suddenly wanted to give it all up: to let someone else take the responsibility from his hands and say _who gives a fuck?_

In many ways Simon was the best of them – and not just as a soldier. More than that, Simon was the nearest thing he had to a best friend. Or he had been. In recent months there had been a wedge growing between. And at some point something was going to break. _What are you doing to me Simon? Why aren't you the person I knew?_

The urge to batter his head against the dashboard until he collapsed insensate was at the moment altogether too appealing. _Self-pitying wanker, _as the old Simon would have called him.

"Anyway, where's the problem?" Langer again, as the silence threatened to grow into a monster. "As far as I see it we have twenty-four hours to recover a bit of property from a posh English bint. Hardly the most onerous task we've ever faced. And dare I say it, if we can't manage this then we don't deserve to live."

A hint of a smile touched Lomax's lips. Langer did have a certain way of putting things.

The smile faded. Yes, on the surface it did seem simple enough. But then, so had Angola. "This 'posh English bint' managed not only to escape from us completely clean, but also steal a car and the object that has gotten us into this mess." Lomax looked pointedly from Travis to Simon as he spoke.

They both started talking at once.

Lomax listened to their overlapping voices, completely incomprehensible as they talked over the top of each other, until his patience ran dry. About five seconds all told. 

"Shut. The. Fuck. Up. The pair of you." Anger he could live with. Anger was easy. "Now I don't care whose fault it was she escaped. I'm quite happy to blame both of you. One thing I do guarantee though: if either of you manages to fuck up again the One-Legged Man won't get the chance to take it out on your miserable hides. Because I'll beat him to it. Clear?"

Two mumbled apologies.

Lomax sighed. Of course, when it came to it, it was neither of their faults. Well okay _it_ was, but he had to take first slice of the blame himself. If he'd just shot her right off then none of this mess would have arisen. . .

Oh he could put that one on Simon too – it would be easy enough. But the bottom line was he'd been glad when his old friend had stepped between them. Glad that he didn't have to be a cold-blooded murderer again today.

Her eyes had haunted his dreams. 

Brown eyes that gazed calmly into the core of his being, even as he'd held his sidearm in front of them, ready to extinguish their life. He'd seen those eyes glazed over in death, a gaping bullet hole between them. He'd also seen them, equally calm, behind the barrel of a gun of her own – emotionless as she pulled the trigger. 

Lomax wasn't sure which of the two visions had distressed him most. But in a strange way he found the prospect of facing those eyes again every bit at frightening as knowing what the One-legged Man would do to them if they failed.

_How do you face someone who knows that you would have killed them? How do you explain?_

Lomax forced the thoughts away. Pointless philosophising just now. He dialled up Hicks. Not that he expected anything. Hicks would have called if anything had come up. _Still, I'm doing something. Man of action._

"Hicks. Anything?"

"Not a thing so far." It was always a jolt when he heard that computer generated voice, so completely different to the languid Carolina drawl he still subconsciously expected. And as always it was a glaring reminder of Angola. Their collective failure. _His_ own failure. "If she's intelligent she won't show up. She'll go straight to the police."

She _was_ intelligent. Hicks was wrong though, but Lomax couldn't quite say why. _I've looked into her eyes_, was hardly a sound explanation. "I've got a friend looking into that. We'll hear if she does."

"So she hasn't yet? Interesting."

Lomax guiltily pushed away the feeling that he was having a conversation with an answering machine. Talking to Hicks always felt uncomfortable these days.

Still, better Hicks than Rankin. It came to something when a man with no vocal cords was a better conversationalist than their driver and mechanic. Still, that was Rankin – if it didn't have an engine he could tinker with, it wasn't worth his attention.

"Got someone watching her workplace I assume?"

_Fuck. Crapped your brains out last time you went to the shitter did you Lomax?_ "That's being taken care off," he evaded. By Travis and Simon. Immanently.

His finger moved over the disconnect button. All he was succeeding in doing was distracting Hicks's attention.

Hicks's voice stalled him. "Hang on a second Lomax. Something here."

* * *

"How is she?" Emil asked.

Franz looked round and grunted. "I thought you were supposed to be in bed."

"'Supposed' is such a vague concept. Now are you going to answer my question?"

"Feeling tetchy, Emil?" He held a hand up to forestall the retort. "She's fine, all things considered. Cuts and bruises, some minor burns, a mild concussion." He looked pointedly at Emil – stripped to the waist with his back swathed in bandages where flying glass had done a fair job of turning him into a human pincushion. "About like yourself in fact."

"I'm fine," Emil grumbled.

"What you are is lucky."

Emil didn't bother to respond. After a moment he said: "He knew we were coming."

"You're sure about that?" But Franz's tone suggested he wasn't particularly surprised.

"Well unless he makes a habit of leaving booby-trapped corpses lying around in his office every time he goes out, just on the off-chance, then I'd say so, yes."

They paused as a nurse walked past them, waiting until she'd vanished out of sight along the hospital corridor before continuing with their conversation.

"Well we did try to warn you about his. . . unique nature." Franz was at least somewhat shaken though, Emil could tell.

"You know, it's very easy to perform miracles if your audience doesn't bother trying to see how your tricks are done."

"So what are you suggesting? That we have an informant? Only the four of us knew about what was happening."

In Emil's experience there were always more people who knew about any given thing than you suspected. And four was a number at least three too many for secrecy. "I'm saying you have to treat it as a possibility. If we go around treating everything this bastard does as 'magic' we're as good as conceding defeat before we're started."

"Maybe, maybe," Franz conceded.

"Is she awake?"

"I didn't think you two liked each other much."

_That obvious was it?_ "I need to talk to her. My opinions on her personality are probably irrelevant."

"Glad you see that. She's good Emil. One of our best."

"I can tell that Franz." It was other areas where he had issues with Joanna Ironheart.

"She was awake when I left her, though tired. The nurses were eager to throw me out."

"I'll handle the nurses."

"Not literally I hope."

Emil blinked. "Was that a joke a Franz?" _Wonders will never cease_.

Franz didn't answer, instead responding with another question. "What are your plans for Mr. Charron now, Emil?"

"One of the things I want to talk to Joanna about. I'd rather not go into specifics."

Franz nodded. "Sensible. Not much good if he can read minds but. . ." He smiled to show he wasn't serious. "Well, I won't keep you from your work. Keep me informed." Then he was walking away down the corridor in the same direction that the nurse had vanished a few moments earlier.

Emil pushed inside Joanna's room while there was nobody there to stop him. It was very dim inside, blinds drawn down to block out the morning sunlight. Joanna's form was little more than an indistinct bulge beneath the bedcovers.

Closer, he could see that her eyes were closed, the sound of her breathing soft and steady. She was alarmingly pale, dark smudges stark beneath her eyes. Gauze bandages covered the bruises and burns left behind by the hand that had grabbed her throat, and she was wearing one of those turquoise-green hospital smocks. Not the most attractive of garments, although Emil suspected the back view might be worth seeing.

He walked round to the side of the bed and lowered himself gingerly into one of the chairs there. The worst of his injuries, he'd discovered, weren't the cuts from the flying glass, or even the burns. No, it was the muscles he'd managed to pull in his back lugging Joanna's limp weight down somewhere in the region of sixteen floors. They hurt like hell.

"Morning Emil. Feeling well I trust?"

He jolted slightly. She hadn't opened her eyes, or given any other sign of being aware of his presence. "Joanna," he responded carefully.

Silence.

"You're bloody heavy you know," He said after several seconds had passed and no other opening conversational gambits presented themselves.

"I'm one-hundred and thirty-two pounds exactly. Hardly heavy by anybody's standards."

He grunted. "You try lugging that down twenty floors with glass splinters in your back and tell me exactly how heavy it isn't."

"Sixteen floors." She opened her eyes for the first time and looked at him. "You should have left me you know. It was stupid to take the risk of both of us getting caught."

Emil stared at her. Well he had hardly expected ringing thanks or anything, but a hint of gratitude might have been nice. To be told he'd actually fucked up. . . that was rather too much. A number of retorts came to mind, but he bit them back. "I'll bear that in mind for next time."

"I'd have left you, you know." 

Emil shrugged. "You wouldn't have had any choice in the matter though, would you?"

No one said anything for a while. Emil shifted in his chair, trying in vain for a comfortable position. "So how bad is it?"

"A mild concussion. I've worked through worse, despite what the doctors say. I'll be up and about later today. After I've had some sleep."

Was that a hint that he should go away? "Now who's being stupid?"

"This is the perfect opportunity. He certainly believes we're both dead and won't be expecting another strike so soon. We _have_ to take advantage of that."

"That head injury is affecting you more than you think." He ignored the angry twist to her face. "When he hears the reports that only one body was found – if even that wasn't destroyed completely – he's going to know we got away immediately. He'll expect us to do exactly what you're suggesting and Christ knows what he's going to have waiting for us this time."

"So what exactly do you suggest?" There was an acid note to her voice.

Emil had been thinking about this question ever since the nurse had finished tweezering glass fragments out of his back. "We change tack. Instead of running around blindly trying to kill him we find out what he's up to. Then we stop him doing it. That's got to be our first priority. Correct?"

She didn't immediately shoot him down in flames, so he went on. "In particular we find out what Hutchings was doing outside that building before he died. Or rather I do, since you'll be obeying the doctors instructions and staying here for the rest of the day."

As expected Joanna started to protest. Emil cut her off. "I can manage perfectly well on my own thank you. I know this city. I've lived here for over twenty years, and I've got contacts with the police. . . and others too, who can help me. What precisely do you think you could do that I can't manage?"

"I know Charron."

Emil shrugged. "Well, maybe having a fresh perspective will actually be an advantage." He levered himself to his feet, carefully hiding a wince of the pain. _Get out while you're ahead on points._ "You get some rest so you're recovered when we do have to go after this bastard again." He started for the door.

"Just make sure you don't screw up." Joanna's voice came after him.

Hardly a ringing endorsement by any standards. He looked back at her, but her eyes were closed again, her breathing once more slow and steady. He left.

In the corridor he tried his mobile phone again, more out of habit than expectation. There was a message. He felt his mouth go dry. Lara's voice.

"Emil. . . it's me Lara." A pause. She sounded slightly odd – distracted and unsure, which wasn't like her. "Damn, I hate these things. Perfect mechanism for making your mind go blank. Anyway, call me Emil would you? Something a touch strange. . ." A quickly strangled laugh. "Has come up. Bye."

There was another message after that, from a friend of his called Mike, wanting to know if he was doing anything this evening. Emil scarcely heard it.

He was slightly perplexed. From the sound of it Lara hadn't picked up the message he'd left for her. He dialled her home number rapidly.

* * *

Lara experienced a sinking feeling as soon as she stepped through the front door. _Too late_. 

She stopped and stared at the ornately gilded Chinese box sitting in the entrance hall. Opening the two small doors in its front showed that it was empty.

_Still in the house or gone?_

Lara felt a prickle of nervousness at the thought that someone could be watching her right now, concealed in the shadows. She quickly dismissed it. _Illogical._ Winston had to have been here when the box was delivered. If anyone had been inside it they'd already had over eighteen hours. They were long gone.

Nevertheless she took no chances. 

Kicking her shoes off so she could move more quietly, Lara headed upstairs. Taking the pump action shotgun she kept in the cupboard beside her bed, she loaded it with buckshot cartridges. 

Armed, she felt rather more confident – rather more herself.

There were no signs of burglary, she noted as she padded barefoot through the house. So whoever it was had obviously known exactly what they were looking for. If there was anybody. If she wasn't simply being paranoid.

_How else to you explain the box?_

She did what she'd so far been avoiding: went to check the treasure room. At the switch in the hall she paused briefly. The skirt she was wearing was too tight to allow her to move quickly enough for the required dash and roll. With an inward shrug she slipped out of it.

She made it easily, the movements a matter of ingrained routine. As the wall slammed shut behind her she stood up and looked around.

Her initial impression was one of vast relief. 

The Dagger of Xian was still in place, spinning slowly and chuntering quietly to itself. The Hand of Rathmore and the Iris of Angkor still occupied their customary spots. . . She'd been half expecting to find them all gone.

Lara frowned. She'd been so certain that there was a thief, and seeing that box had only confirmed those suspicions. But she knew the Dagger in particular, and that would surely have contrived a way to get itself stolen too. The dragon soul imprisoned within it could be very, very persuasive and she knew from experience just how seductive its voice could be.

_Don't count chickens dear._

She walked around the room, glancing quickly up at the leering T-Rex skull mounted over the fireplace. Once it had been covered in flesh – a magnificent creature. She felt a pang of affection for it_. Sorry old pal, but it was either you or me_.

_Shut up. I'm not in the mood._ Aimed at the Dagger of Xian, which had noticed her presence and was going into its old 'set me free' routine.

For a wonder the thing actually obeyed, apparently sensing the futility of it in her current mood. Lara counted quickly along the wood panels covering the walls until she had the one she wanted. Her fingers found the catch.

_You're not nearly as much fun as the other one._

Lara froze. Her head swung round, staring at the glass tank that contained the Dagger. _What?_ She glared at it, an extremely unpleasant feeling forming within her. _What did you just say?_

The only answer was a suggestion of a chuckle.

_What other one?_ She stared at it, hands on hips, but nothing more was forthcoming. Arrogant bastards, dragons, she'd long ago concluded. _None of the proper social graces._

Normally the thought made her smile. It didn't today. 

Someone _had_ been here.

With a feeling at trepidation, Lara turned back and tripped the catch. A few seconds later a section of wall a couple of paces to her right opened silently.

The four meteorite artefacts were exactly where they were supposed to be, but she ignored that. The Dagger's words still resounded in her head. Pushing the drawer back, she stared into the shadowy recess underneath.

She could hardly call it surprise. Nevertheless, the feelings she got staring into that empty space were far from pleasant. 

Forcing herself to keep calm, Lara closed the wall back up again. 

_Okay, we have ourselves a very disciplined and discriminating thief._ He gaze touched the golden Toltec idol. It alone was worth a large-scale fortune, and she knew at least half a dozen collectors who'd gladly buy it, no questions asked. _Or one under very specific instructions, afraid of her employer_.

This mysterious One-Legged Man.

Lara realised suddenly that if yesterday had been a normal day she wouldn't have noticed the theft at all. Indeed, it might have been years before she found out that Megaera was gone.

_In the past six years how many times have I looked at it?_

Once, she realised. And even that had been incidental. She'd been putting the four meteorite artefacts in the draw above it and taken the figurine out for a few brief seconds to hold it.

_David_. There was a pang of guilt. Perhaps that was what she'd been doing. Shutting the troublesome memories away in a box.

Lara turned to leave. No sense standing around: it wasn't going to make the figurine magically re-materialise. 

It seemed as if the dagger snickered at her.

_I should seal you up in a lead-lined cask and drop you over the Marianas Trench. See how you laugh at that. _It was silent again though. She might as well have been talking to herself.

She picked up the green holdall. Ironic really. She'd managed to unknowingly swap one figurine for another.

_I need to have words with this One-Legged Man_, she mused to herself as she headed upstairs. _Very strong, and possibly violent words_.

* * *

"She's still inside," Hicks informed Lomax as he got out the car in front of the wrought iron gates.

Lomax nodded curtly, opening the Audi's boot as everyone pilled out it. Several cases contained MP-5 submachine guns fitted with suppressers, sidearms, and flashbangs. Enough for five of them. There were also a pair of SWAT style automatic shotguns. Rankin, would have other, specific duties to occupy his time. "What's that? Fifteen minutes?"

"Nearer twenty."

"What about security?"

The equipment was shared out between them quickly and efficiently. Hick's shrugged. "Surrey's answer to Fort Knox. More alarms than you can shake a very large stick at."

"Fabulous." Not that Lomax had expected anything different. Wealthy people tended to take their privacy seriously.

"She probably turned at least some of it off going in. And from what we've observed there don't appear to be any security staff on site."

"Probably? Don't appear?"

"What do you expect Lomax? It's not as if we've had chance to do any proper reconnaissance is it?"

Or even make a plan when it came to it. They'd be going in blind. 

_It's a stately home_, he reminded himself. _Not an armed compound._ And a single woman, against five highly trained, heavily armed individuals. Albeit that two of them were acting like complete dicks recently. Blind shouldn't make a difference.

And this was likely as good an opportunity as they'd get.

"Okay people, listen up." His voice was hard and confident. Not what he was feeling on the inside. "Remember that our first and only priority is to get the statue back, clear?" He looked particularly at Travis and Simon here. "Everything else is secondary."

Neither of them seemed inclined to answer back and risk invoking his wrath again. Something to be thankful for at least.

"Assume that we're going to face armed opposition." Anything else would be a pleasant surprise. "And be ready for the unexpected."

There was nothing like an inspiring speech to get you pumped up and ready for action, Lomax thought wryly. And that was nothing like. . . 

"Right then, let's move."

* * *

Lara stepped out of the shower. Her skin was reddened from a bombardment by near-scalding hot needles of water. Twin bands of abraded skin around each wrist stood out starkly – an all too visible reminder of yesterday's confinement.

She snatched up a towel and began drying off her hair as she padded back into the bedroom, leaving a trail of wet footprints and drips behind her. Her thoughts were distracted – occupied by winged-statues rather than her surroundings.

_Avery Rose_. That had been the name of the man who'd hired Du Pont six years ago. An American millionaire with Anglophile leanings, he'd purchased a title and land in Somerset – had been playing out his fantasies as Lord of the manor. A thoroughly obnoxious man, Lara remembered, and someone she had good reason to hate.

Among other things he'd been a collector of antiques and ancient artefacts. Not because of any particular appreciation of the objects themselves, she suspected. More because his ego got a buzz out of knowing that he was the one who owned these things – had power over them. As she remembered, the more outlandish and storied the artefact, the better as far as Avery Rose was concerned.

He wasn't actually dead, although she realised she's been thinking about him in the past tense.

Just after Lara had returned to England following that episode in Greece, Avery Rose had suffered a catastrophic stroke. It had left him paralysed and bedridden, scarcely able to communicate. Poetic justice had been her view on it at the time.

If she had to place money on it she'd have bet that the safety deposit box her mercenary 'friends' had broken into yesterday belonged to Avery Rose.

Lara finished towelling the excess moisture from her body and slung the towel over the back of a chair. Sorting through her wardrobe she quickly pulled out plain black sports underwear, Khaki cargo pants and a camouflage cropped top. Practicality the order of the day.

Dressing swiftly and efficiently, her thoughts returned to Avery Rose. 

She never had found out what his interest in the Erinyes figurine – _figurines_, she amended – had been. When it came to it, she'd never managed to figure out precisely what the significance of the figurines was.

Not that she'd actually expended much effort in that regard. Circumstances had made it. . . difficult.

_The immortal remains. . ._ Those had been the words Nikolas told her Du Pont had used. At the time she'd dismissed them. They'd seemed absurd. Contradictory.

Now she wondered what Du Pont had known about it that she hadn't. For that matter, what Avery Rose had known. And David. And now this mysterious One-Legged Man. She'd always hated the feeling of ignorance. She particularly hated it right now.

Lara growled in exasperation as she pulled the camouflage top on over her head. Unfortunately, for one reason or another, none of those aforementioned individuals was likely to tell her much. Unless. . .

She remembered hearing about a year ago that Avery Rose had recovered slightly and could now speak somewhat, albeit with a great deal of effort. He might be willing to talk to her, despite the nature of their previous relations. Perhaps even, in a strange way, because of them.

It was worth a shot. At least she knew exactly where Rose was, and he wasn't likely to be going anywhere in a hurry either.

Lara finished dressing, pulling on socks and biking boots. Then she set about the business of braiding her still damp hair. Afterwards, as a finishing touch she picked up a pair of red-tinted sunglasses from the top of a dresser and slipped them on. Part of the uniform. It made her feel more comfortable. Somehow more complete.

A fast motorcycle ride down to Somerset. Pay Avery Rose a visit. Yes, that was the order of the day.

Lara picked up her backpack and transferred the metal figurine to it from the holdall. Then she returned the shotgun to the gun cupboard and locked it. Much as she might like it to be otherwise, carrying a loaded gun around in public tended to be frowned upon. 

As she turned to leave, her gaze stopped on her laptop PC. She half moved towards it, intending to check her e-mail, but thought better of it. It would wait. More urgent things required her attention just now.

When she was halfway down the main staircase the phone in the entrance hall began to ring.

"Hello, Croft speaking." As she answered it the front door blew in with a thunderous retort.

* * *

Detective Sergeant Mike Gregson wanted a drink. Scotch with ice. _In fact, hold the ice and make it a double. Two doubles. Hell, give me the whole damn bottle bartender and fuck off while I drink myself to death_.

Unfortunately he was standing in the Accident and Emergency department of a hospital, not his favourite pub. Life could be a shit like that sometimes.

He could feel himself shaking. Broad sweat rings marked his underarms and the front of his shirt was covered in a fine mist of blood droplets. 

_Jesus Christ, what a way to start the morning._ He closed his eyes, pressing the heel of his hand against his forehead. It didn't make the images inside go away.

It had all seemed so routine. A call about a disturbance at an address he'd just happened to be close to at the time. He'd recognised the address as belonging to a small time drug dealer he knew by the name of Mark Kostoukas. A rather pathetic individual all things considered, but he'd proved a useful informant in the past. . . So, despite the fact it wasn't really his job he'd answered the call and said he'd take a look. His good deed for the day. Save the uniforms some unnecessary hassle.

_Fucking idiot._

He'd been able to tell there was something pretty badly wrong as soon as he pulled up outside the front of the house. There was a small crowd gathered outside the front door, which was standing half open, and a couple of the gathering were still wearing dressing gowns – as if they'd come straight from their beds.

Easing his way through them, waving his ID about, he'd asked one – a middle aged woman wearing a robe over her nightie – what was going on.

"Screaming. Awful, awful screaming." She'd seemed shaken.

He'd nodded – tried to give off the 'everything's under control now' signals he'd never had the knack of and persuade everyone to give him some space to work with. 

In the end they'd shifted all of about ten yards, still hovering and watching the front of the house. Awful, awful screaming it may have been, but they all wanted to see what was going on. Perhaps even – if they were particularly lucky – get a glimpse of human tragedy. 

_Human nature_, Gregson had reflected sourly.

Walking up to the door, he'd called in to report he was on scene. Thoughts flicked through his head about requesting back-up or an ambulance. But no, he didn't want to end up looking stupid. In all probability Mark was just on a particularly bad bender. Committed the cardinal sin of sampling his own wares.

The smell hit him like a physical blow. It reminded him of a backed-up toilet, and a grimace of disgust twisted his face. Not that it should have surprised him. As he recalled Mark Kostoukas was an absolute slob. Cleaning was something that happened to other people.

Tentatively he'd stepped inside. It was gloomy – the sun didn't hit the front of the house until the afternoon – and the stench got worse by a factor of ten. Gagging, he'd held a hand up in front of his face and tried to breath shallowly through his mouth. It hadn't helped much.

There was mail scattered across the hall. Piles of it. Gregson frowned, but on closer inspection it appeared it was all bills and junk. The way it was scattered suggested that Mark had been collecting the stuff he wanted and leaving the rest where it fell.

Cautiously, he resumed picking his way forward, through the clutter. Then, abruptly froze.

It had sounded like somebody crying. Gregson's initial thought had been that it was a baby. The idea was appalling. 

Last he'd heard Mark didn't have any serious domestic attachments. _Hey man, I likes my freedom. Don't want nobody cramping my style, if ya know what I mean._ Gregson had simply assumed it was evidence that Mark wasn't able to find any woman stupid enough to put up with his bullshit for more than five seconds.

But maybe that had changed. _Fuck_. 

The thought of a baby being brought up in these conditions, a drug addict father and god knows what kind of mother. . . He suppressed a shudder, along with a sudden wish that he'd let someone else handle the call after all. _Neglected babies aren't my field._

Reminding himself of the reported screaming, and of the fact that he could hardly back out now, Gregson had pressed forward.

It had turned out the sound was coming from the kitchen. There were marks on the carpet leading up it, and as Gregson got closer he saw that they were blood, still slightly tacky and looking almost brown on the background of filthy beige. Not an amount to necessarily indicate a fatality, but enough that it had come from a pretty serious injury. 

He'd started to radio in for an ambulance, but another noise had stayed him.

"No, please. . ." The anguish was palpable. Definitely not from any baby.

His heart thumping, Gregson burst through the kitchen door.

Blood. That had been his first impression. Streaks of it smeared across the vinyl floor tiles. Splattered droplets and garish handprints up the kitchen units. The sweet coppery stench of it mingling with that foul excremental reek.

He felt his gorge rising – had to swallow hard to keep from throwing up.

Mark Kostoukas was sitting propped against the sink. Gregson stopped and stared.

"K-Kindly one? Is that you kindly one? No, please. . !" His legs, clad in blood-splattered jeans kicked feebly against the floor, and he appeared to be trying to force himself backward through the wall. His hands covered his face from Gregson's view, gloved bright red in gore.

As he'd watched more blood had oozed from between Mark Kostoukas's fingers.

"Kindly one! You are too bright for me. I am sorry. So, so sorry. I beg of you. Forgive me please. Oh, kindly one!" He started sobbing again – the sound that Gregson had heard when he first came in.

_Totally fucking out of his head._ Gregson had taken a couple of tentative steps forward, peering closer. "Mark? Can you hear me Mark?"

At the sound of his voice, Mark had started to twitch violently. "No! Kindly one, haven't I suffered enough? Haven't I? What more do you want from me? Please!"

"Easy Mark." Another step closer to him, wondering who the hell this 'kindly one' he kept on about was supposed to be. They didn't sound particularly kind.

"Look what I've done for you kindly one. Look! You were too bright for my eyes to stand. Look!" As Gregson stepped over him, Mark had lowered his hands from his face and spread his palms.

"Oh sweet Jesus. . ."

This time Gregson hadn't managed to swallow back the flood of bile, leaning over to one side and vomiting his breakfast explosively onto the kitchen floor.

Sitting on Mark Kostoukas's raised palms, small and shrivelled and pathetic looking, had been a pair of eyeballs. His eye sockets were gaping, bloody holes, weeping copious red tears.

Between then and the ambulance arriving had been spent in a kind of daze. Mark had kept on and on about this damned 'kindly one', oblivious to everything else. Every time Mike had attempted to get close – to try and do something about those gaping wounds – Mark had gone into some kind of fit, kicking and thrashing and wailing until he backed away again.

_What were you supposed to do for a man who had gouged his own eyeballs out in any case?_

When the medics had finally arrived and tried to get him onto a stretcher Mark Kostoukas had started screaming at the top of his voice. "Kindly one! Kindly one!"

A lashing foot caught one of the medics hard. He trod in the pool of vomit Gregson had left, skidding over onto his backside. Then Mark had started thrashing again, his hands coming up to rake at his own face, leaving deep, bloody gouges.

Gregson and one of the medics leapt on him, grabbing an arm each and trying to prise them away from his face. Mark was hellishly strong though. Stronger than his skinny frame should have made possible.

"No! No! You don't know what you're doing! Kindly one, it isn't my fault. No, Kindly one!"

Eventually, four of them working together had managed to get Mark onto the stretcher, strapping his arms and legs securely down. Even so, he'd continued to thrash and strain against his restraints.

An administered sedative appeared to have no effect and Mark continued to strain and yell and beg. As one of the medics attempted to apply a gauze bandage around his gaping, bleeding eye-sockets Mark's bloodstained teeth snapped viciously, trying to get his fingers.

Then they were wheeling him out of the house past the gaping onlookers – more of them than when Gregson had first arrived. All the time Mark kept on ranting about the 'Kindly One', thrashing and straining against his confinement.

It had been a massive relief once they managed to get him in the back of the ambulance, the door slammed shut behind them.

Only when they were already driving off did Gregson realise that he'd inadvertently come along for the ride. He'd been too numb with shock to care much – able to feel himself shaking.

Finally the sedatives seemed to take affect and Mark had quieted, his thrashing subsiding to the occasional weak twitch. Gregson watched wearily as one of the medics went about the business of setting up a drip.

"What the hell did that to his eyes?" 

Gregson had jolted at the unexpected words. "Did it to himself. Gouged them out with his bare hands far as I can figure."

"You're shitting me?" The medic had sounded ill.

A shaken head. "Flying out of his skull on drugs if it's anything like the Mark Kostoukas I knew." He'd laughed shakily – slightly hysterically. "Jesus, I wouldn't want to be in his position when he finally comes down."

The medic grunted, now seemingly taking it all in his stride – just another piece of hideous wackiness from the nation's capital. "Yeah, I heard about this other guy. From the States. New York maybe, I think. Got high on PCP and cut his own face off with glass from a broken mirror. His entire fucking face. Took over an hour at it and didn't feel a thing. Least not until afterwards."

"Jesus Christ." Gregson had suddenly felt even more sick. "Some world we live in."

"You got that right. Some of the things you see in this job. . ." He paused. "Well I guess you get to see the same sort of thing in your job too don't you?"

Too bloody much as far as Gregson was concerned. He just grunted his acknowledgement.

Mark Kostoukas had chosen that moment to whisper: "Kindly one. . ."

Gregson saw the medic shiver. "Any idea who the hell this 'kindly one' he keeps going on about is? I tell you, something about the way he says it gives me the willies."

Gregson shook his head. "God knows what world he's inhabiting just at the moment. It sure ain't this one. And you know what? I'm not entirely sure I want to know who this 'kindly one' is. They don't sound any too kindly to me."

"Amen. . ." the medic started.

Suddenly Mark gave an ear-piercing shriek. "Kindly one!" Abruptly he was thrashing violently against his restraints again, back arching,

"Shit!" The medic swore, hopping back involuntarily. "No fucking way. He shouldn't be able to move, the amount of sedatives I put in him. . ."

To Gregson the next few seconds had seemed to take place in slow motion.

"Oh Kindly one, yes. If you will forgive. . . Please, please forgive. . ." He'd watched, transfixed, as Mark stuck his tongue out, seemingly further than was humanly possible, then bit down hard.

Blood spurted. He heard himself gasp aloud in shock.

"Help me!" The medic was suddenly back beside Mark's strapped down form. "Sweet Jesus, he's bitten the thing off. Get off your fucking arse and give me a hand here." 

Blood continuing to pump from his mouth, Mark Kostoukas was going into convulsions.

The rest of the ride in the ambulance passed by as nightmarish blur. Hooking the drip up to plasma packs in an effort to stop him bleeding to death. Struggling to get a tube inserted up his nose and down into his airways to prevent him drowning. Blood spurting all the time, Mark thrashing and gurgling hideously beneath them.

How long it had gone on for Gregson didn't know, but by the time they'd reached the hospital and Mark was being wheeled away he'd felt absolutely exhausted – physically and mentally. 

He shuddered again, leaning against the wall. _What a morning._

Abruptly he remembered the instructions he'd received from his contact, and for some reason he couldn't explain, burst out laughing. He was aware that people were turning to stare at him, but wasn't able to make himself stop.

If this didn't fit the specified requirements he didn't know what did. Laughter choking off, he pulled out his mobile phone and dialled.

* * *

The seventeenth reincarnation of the twelfth High-Priestess of Isis, Neria Nasau-Afan, opened up the small side-street shop and stepped inside. There she paused a moment, rubbing her eyes and yawning, and wondering briefly why she bothered. 

_Because it is your calling.__Right._

In this life Neria Nasau-Afan was usually better known as Patricia. And, she thought to herself slightly wryly as she caught a glimpse of herself in a dusty mirror, definitely a Pat rather than a Tricia. Pats were allowed to be forty or fifty pounds overweight with frizzy orange hair where the brown roots were starting to show. Tricias on the other hand, were generally required to be rather slimmer and more sexually alluring.

She navigated her way between aisles of tight shelves, which to the undiscerning eye were piled high with useless clutter. Jars of herbs, unguents and potions, candles of all shapes and sizes, sticks of incense, corn dollies and dowsing rods, chalks and charcoals, sheafs of papyrus, boxes filled with crystals that glinted like a child's marbles. Anything and everything you could imagine with a vaguely mystical flavour.

The sources of the items were as diverse and jumbled as the items themselves. Pagan Celtic mixed with everything from Hindu to Buddhist to New Orleans style Voodoo. All mingling together with little evidence of any rhyme or reason.

Neria generally found the mishmash to be comforting and soothing – a blurring of forces and mystical energies that was calming to her heightened sensitivities. Not today though. Today something she couldn't identify nagged and gnawed, disturbing the aura of serenity and knocking her sense of inner balance askew.

As she rounded the corner of one of the shelves the long, shapeless dress she wore caught on a bundle of dowsing rods, sending them scattering across the floor. 

Neria cursed, using language that didn't altogether befit the tranquillity of mind that the reincarnation of the twelfth High-Priestess of Isis ought to possess. Breathing deeply, trying to restore balance to her inner kai, she bent down and began picking them up.

Something was definitely amiss. There were disturbing vibrations in the air. She could feel them quite clearly. Something of significance was about to occur, she was certain. And it wasn't necessarily something she was going to like.

Neria finished bundling the dowsing rods and put them back in their place on the shelves. She stood up with a sigh.

It was a long time since Neria had felt like she did today. Not since she was a girl, almost thirty years ago in fact. The realisation provoked a sudden pang of fear in her. _Relax, it's nothing. The world just gets more and more agitated these days. Don't worry yourself._

The nightmare that had woken her this morning came back to her and she shuddered – forced it aside. That had been one of the visionary ones she knew. The ones that showed real events as they were happening.

As she stepped through a beaded curtain into the backroom and started making herself a cup of herbal tea she found she was unable to take the attempted reassurance to heart. Idly she picked up an old and badly worn deck of tarot cards – nearly thirty years old themselves; a childhood gift from her aunt. Shuffling them absently she tried a reading.

No use. The cards came down as gibberish, contradictory and chaotic. A second attempt. Different cards but just as nonsensical. Shaking her head, she put them away.

She took a sip from the tea and wandered back behind the counter. No customers she noted. But then again, there rarely were at this time of day. In fact there were rarely any customers full stop. A few regulars, but even on the good weeks she rarely broke even. If this place had been her sole source of income she'd have gone bankrupt years ago.

It was going to be hot again. In fact it was already hot, uncomfortably close and muggy in the confines of the shop. It would get considerably hotter though, as the day wore on. Neria didn't like the heat much; it made her skin turn blotchy. In former lifetimes it had been different.

She tried reading some of the book she was in the middle of – something by someone called Hancock about the lost civilization of Atlantis and how there was evidence all across the world of its existence – but found it difficult to concentrate. The words in front of her kept swimming out of focus and she couldn't take them in.

_Something wicked this way comes._

Neria started. _Now where had that come from?_ She scanned the words in front of her. Nothing there certainly.

Peering into the gloom between the aisles of shelves she felt herself shudder. There was a bell on the door, she reminded herself, and she hadn't heard that. But, then there were _things_ out there that didn't need to bother with doors. She knew that, even if no one else did, and since she was a girl _they_ had tended to gravitate towards her.

"H-Hello? Is there anybody there?" A tremor in her voice betrayed her nervousness.

No reply. No sound. No sign of movement. _Just my imagination. Everyone's always telling me what a vivid one I have._

"Fear not, dearest one."

Neria started violently. She turned to see a slight looking figure emerge from an aisle of shelves to her left. At first glance she thought it was a child, though closer inspection revealed it to be a small, delicately formed Asian woman with short-cropped hair.

Neria allowed herself to breathe a sigh of relief. Not one of them after all. Just a woman, and perhaps even a customer. A paying customer. _She probably came in while I was in the backroom. I can be pretty deaf when I've got my attention fixed on something. . ._ _Stop staring like a loon and say something._

"Can I help you with anything?"

Just then the woman turned to face Neria directly and the light caught in her eyes.

Bright, shining disks of copper. Neria heard herself gasp in shook, taking a couple of shaken paces back from the counter.

"Calm yourself Priestess." The voice had a peculiar resonance to it – seemed to come from more than one throat simultaneously.

_Dear god, why? Why here? Why now? Why me?_ Neria felt herself withering beneath that copper gaze.

"K-Kindly One?" She didn't know where that came from either, but she instinctively knew it was the proper title of respect to use. 

_Hospitality. You must offer proper hospitality. Those who violate the laws of hospitality make themselves fair game._ "K-Kindly One. Please be welcome to my most humble shop." Neria felt herself floundering and knew that her skin had turned bright, blotchy red.

The 'woman' smiled. An expression to inspire fear rather than pleasure or happiness. "I thank you Priestess."

Neria could feel the power of this woman crackling in the air like a static charge. Real fear welled up inside her. This woman could destroy her like that, if she so chose. And this woman was very, very cruel.

Not for the first time since she had found out that she was _different_, Neria Nasau-Afan found herself silently cursing her 'gift'. "W-What is that you require of me, Kindly One? How is it that I can serve?"

The woman's smile widened – became, if possible, even less comforting. "Why Priestess, I require sanctuary."

* * *

Lara dropped the phone and dove full length.

Bullets – their sound oddly muffled – tore through the air above her and stitched a line of splintered holes in the antique wood panelling covering the walls. The second time in the past few years they had suffered that particular indignity. One of them hit the fallen phone, shattering it.

Her head still reeling, Lara scrambled back to her feet and darted away in the direction of the gymnasium. Through the clouds of smoke she caught a glimpse of two black-clad figures, one of them carrying an MP5 submachine-gun, the other a huge automatic shotgun.

_Which two though? _

Then the air behind her was buzzing with 10mm bullets again, and she no longer had the luxury of doing anything other than desperately attempting to keep her skin intact. She rolled behind the cover of a wooden vaulting horse, throwing herself flat just as another volley ripped into it. Splinters stung her flesh, but nothing more substantial found its mark.

Then – for an instant – silence fell.

The blood rushing loudly in her ears drowned everything else out as she strained to hear. Two of them. That meant another four, somewhere. Probably moving to flank her even now. With the notable exception of Travis, they'd all struck her as extremely competent.

_Got to keep moving._

She strained again to hear: to try and get a feel for where the two in front of her were and what they were doing. _Why the hell did I put the shotgun away? Stupid bloody cow._

There'd be time for self-beration later. If there was a later.

Footsteps, approaching cautiously. Good. They didn't appear to realise she was unarmed. She rose into a crouch.

Suddenly one of the gymnasium windows exploded in a shower of broken glass. Something landed close behind her, bouncing and trailing smoke. She was already in motion though, sprinting in a low crouch. It detonated with a stunning flash, but she was clear.

The muffled chartering of automatic fire rang out again, this time from two separate sources. Lara jinked and wove, the air around buzzing as if with a thousand angry bees. Miraculously nothing found her flesh to bring a terminal end to her flight.

Then there was an angry roar, thunderously loud. That automatic shotgun she'd seen one of them carrying. 

The blast from it hit a climbing-frame as she jinked behind it. It obliterated one of the frame's supports and the entire thing collapsed with a tortured shriek followed by a loud splintering crash. Lara felt something strike her hard in the middle back, making her stagger and almost fall. Her backpack absorbed all of the pellets though, none of them finding their way through to the skin beneath.

Then she made a diving leap through the opening leading onto the swimming pool. One more volley of bullets tore through the air she'd just been occupying, then the gunfire fell silent again.

Lara could hear her own breathing coming in ragged gasps as she darted along the side of the pool; was still scarcely able to comprehend how she'd made it this far unscathed. She kept her gaze fixed on the opening behind her, but for the moment no one seemed to be in any hurry to follow her.

More evidence that they thought she was armed. A small chink of light, though all in all the situation looked pretty damned bleak.

"Croft? You hear me?" She recognised Lomax's voice, strong and authoritative.

She didn't reply right away, listening intently, in case someone was using Lomax's words as a distraction. Not that she could do much about it if they were.

"Croft?"

"I hear you, Lomax." She kept on moving, towards one of the alcoves housing a jade Egyptian cat. To all appearances the only way out of the pool area was the direction by which she'd entered. That or the skylight, unreachable at around fifteen feet above her head.

"Then listen up. I'm not going to repeat myself"

She didn't bother to respond, instead listening and watching for the assault that she knew was going to come. _May as well at least be prepared._

"Okay Croft, here's the thing. We're here for the statue you stole. You could say it's a matter of life and death for us. But we're only here for the statue. Get what that means? I'll spell it out in case you don't. There doesn't have to be any bloodshed here. You hand over the statue like a good girl, and we go away, no harm done."

"How about I think about it a while Mr. Lomax?"

His reply was exasperated. "Yes or no. That's hardly a lot to think about, is it?"

A pause. The quiet felt strange after the storm of bullets.

"How stupid do you think I am, precisely, Mr Lomax?"

"Well let's see shall we? Stupid enough to steal the statue from us in the first place, when you could have just walked away, scot-free. Yes, pretty stupid I'd guess."

_Can't argue with that one. Pretty bloody stupid indeed_. "No, what I'm getting at Mr. Lomax, is why should I trust you? You were going to shoot me yesterday for far less reason than you've got today, and the way you come in all guns blazing hardly fills me with confidence."

His reply came back almost immediately. "I never said I particularly cared whether I had to shoot you, Croft. It doesn't matter to me at all. All I want is the statue. And I'm going to get it, one way or another. I just thought you might like to be reasonable and walk away from this."

"Oh I think you can come up with a better offer than that Mr. Lomax."

"There's nothing to negotiate. I've made my offer. Take it or leave it."

Lara continued as though he hadn't said anything. "The way I figure it Mr. Lomax, this is going to get awfully expensive for you. I've got the statue, as you call it, here in my backpack." She wondered briefly what sort of damage those shotgun pellets had done to it – pushed the thought away. "There's only one way in and out of here and if you want me you're going to have to come through it. Now you may be wearing body armour. I didn't see for certain, but even so I know exactly how to get round that. The first man who comes through is a corpse. Simple as that. I'm pretty certain I'll be able to get the second too. The third. Well the third will get me if they're any good, but hey, what the hell, I'm ahead on points by that time."

Silence.

"Don't believe me Mr. Lomax? I've killed men before. Killed a lot. I never enjoyed it much, but it won't stop me from doing it again if I have to. I think we're both a lot alike on that score, right?"

"Lara?" This wasn't Lomax. The flat East-Coast American accent was replaced by an English one. Hampshire or thereabouts.

"Hello Simon. Nice to talk to you again. We have to stop meeting like this."

"Yes. We do. Lara, I guarantee you that Lomax's offer is good. You give us the statue and we walk away. No one gets hurt and we never see each other again. You have my word on that."

It was, on the face of it, the simplest solution. The thing was a heap of junk that had caused her quite enough trouble already. So why that stubborn feeling she recognised all too well?

_Well for one thing I'm rather peeved by the way they treated my front door. . . _And for another she strongly suspected it would give this One-Legged Man three of the things. Not a state of affairs to leave her with many happy thoughts.

"If it's any comfort Simon I believe you. I believed Lomax as well. I have a counter proposal though."

"There is no counter proposal." Lomax sounded ready to have kittens. "You give us the statue. We go away. End of story. Alternatively we shoot you."

"Hear a girl out, would you?" She went on quickly before he had a chance to answer back. "How about you contact your friend the One-Legged Man – whoever the hell he is – and tell him I'll hand the statue over, but only to him, in person. That sound fair?"

"No chance." Lomax's voice was cold.

"Well, in that case maybe you'd give him a different message. Tell him I'll swap the statue for the one he stole from me. Only fair really."

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

Were all six of them in the gym now, waiting for the signal to rush her? There'd be flash bangs first, like the one that had come through the window. Then a blaze of bullets. . . "You may not be aware, but while I was your guest Mr. Lomax, your employer – at least I assume it was him – had someone break into my home and steal something. Something which looks very, very similar to the statue I now have in my backpack in fact."

"Right, that's it. My patience has run out. You've got a ten count. . ."

"You have no idea what the statue even is, do you Mr. Lomax?"

"I. . ."

"I'll enlighten you shall I? It represents one of the three Erinyes. Greek deities of vengeance. You may be more familiar with them in their Roman incarnation – the Furies."

"What has. . ."

Lara again didn't bother to wait for his reply. "But I'm guessing you don't know the significance of what you're giving him, do you? You have no idea of the implications. . ."

"I couldn't give a fuck what the damned thing is worth. . ."

"Mr. Lomax, I am not talking about the thing's monetary value. I'm asking if you have any idea what you're actually going to be delivering to him."

Silence.

"Well?" Too much to hope that Lomax knew anything about the figurine that she didn't, Lara supposed. People like this One-Legged man didn't usually go around sharing the intricacies of their plans with the hired help.

"Croft. One final time. Are you going to hand over the statue or not?"

"On balance Mr. Lomax? She retreated back into the alcove, knowing that the assault wouldn't be long in coming. "I think not."

* * *

Lomax could feel his teeth grinding together. She'd as much as admitted she was cornered. She'd conceded she wouldn't be able to take them them all on. Yet she was as good as daring him to come and kill her. 

He wanted to scream in frustration. _Stupid fucking, insane, obstinate bitch._

If she somehow thought she could bluff him she was about to receive an extremely rude awakening indeed.

Still he hesitated.

The calm of her voice had disturbed him. She knew something he didn't. Hardly a new experience, but one he had ceased enjoying long ago. Her words about the statue played in his head as he tried to extract meaning from them.

_Hey, Soldier; you've got your orders. You ain't paid to think._

Got that right. He glanced across at the silent Hicks on one side of him, then at Simon's stocky pit-bull bulk. They outnumbered her. They outgunned her. They held all the aces. Yet still he was worried about laying his hand out on the table.

_Go in hard. Take her down. Get what you came for. Get out. Simple._

His gaze lingered on the opening in front of him. White and black marble; the sunlight casting scintillating reflections on the crystal blue waters of the pool. No sign of movement. Deceptive tranquillity.

With a deep breath he gave the signal.

The calm erupted. Flash bangs bounced and rolled through the opening, trailing smoke and detonating in stunning flashes. A hail of bullets followed, marble floor tiles splintering. Then Lomax was in motion, charging through the gap behind Hicks as Simon laid down a barrage of covering fire.

Indecision gave way to instinct and training – iron hard concentration. The kick of the gun in his hands was a familiar reassurance as he sent short bursts of bullets into each of the shadowed poolside alcoves in turn.

Plant pots exploded. A priceless jade Egyptian cat was decapitated, its head breaking in half as it bounced on the floor. Intricate mosaic-work was casually destroyed.

The gunfire went on for several more seconds before Lomax yelled for a halt. The air stank of cordite – was thick with dust.

She wasn't here. 

As he looked around at the devastation they'd wrought, that quickly become obvious. Three black clad figures standing amid a shambles of broken floor tiles, bullet riddled walls and shattered fittings, confusion palpable. No sign whatsoever of Lara Croft.

Now Lomax got an inkling as to why she'd been so eager to keep them talking_. Fucking Bitch_. His face twisted in a snarl "Langer! Travis!"

* * *

As the concealed door in the back of the alcove clicked shut behind her, Lara heard gunfire erupt. Timed to perfection.

She could feel the sweat on her palms and there was a tight, fluttery fear inside her. Right now she had precisely one advantage. She knew the territory she was on. They didn't. She'd perhaps bought herself thirty seconds while they worked out what had happened.

She stepped out into the lounge and instantly stopped.

_Bugger_. Not to put too fine a point on it.

One of them was standing directly in front of her, about ten yards away with his back turned. His MP5 submachine-gun was held with its barrel pointed towards the ground. She'd hoped that all of them would be in the gym, but apparently Lomax was playing it cautious.

As she watched, scarcely daring to breathe, he started to slowly turn around. The television set and antique sofa were between her and him, blocking her path. Breath catching in her throat, she moved.

She snatched up the nearest object that was to hand as she ghosted past the television set. It happened to be an irreplaceable second dynasty Ming vase. 

He was still turning towards her. Any second he would see her. She was too far away. . . Lara broke into a run. . .

"Langer! Travis!" Lomax's voice over the man's headset probably saved her life. Just as the mercenary caught her movement in the periphery of his vision he was distracted – a fraction slow in bringing the gun around.

The vase impacted solidly with the man's skull, exploding into several hundred shards. He went down hard.

For a moment Lara stared at the fragments of vase still in her hands, aghast at what she'd just done. Then she gave an inward shrug and cast it aside. Better it than her.

She quickly relieved the fallen man of the MP5 and the handgun from his belt holster – a SIG P226 9mm pistol. Then she stepped over him without another glance as blood leaked slowly from his head to stain the carpet.

Another of them appeared, silhouetted in the passage leading to the entrance hall. 

_Travis_. She recognised him immediately from his bulk and posture. His gun was in the better position and she just managed to dive aside in time to avoid the hail of bullets that came her way. Behind her the screen of her television set imploded, quickly followed by the face of an old grandfather clock, trailing entrails of intricate cogs and gears.

Returning fire blind into the mouth of the passageway, forcing him to take cover, she scrambled back to her feet and made a run for it. 

Even though she was now armed five against one still hardly counted in her favour.

* * *

Langer groaned as Lomax rolled him over onto his back. His eyes were unfocused, staring off into a distance that apparently only he could see. "Ugggh. . . Wah. . . Unnn." His lips worked but produced only a series of disconnected nonsense syllables.

"Simon, look after him." Lomax ordered as he straightened. Inside there was a strange, dark, almost calm.

One woman. One lone woman, taken by surprise by five of them. And they still couldn't handle it. Were, in fact being made to look like class A idiots.

"Travis." His voice reflected that strange calm as he spoke into the intercom. He'd caught a glimpse of his cousin's broad back disappearing after the Croft woman a few seconds earlier.

"On her boss. She ain't getting away."

Lomax's reply died on his lips. What did it matter either way, really? One problem solved or another. "Out," he said simply.

After a second or two he gestured to Hicks and the two of them started in the direction they'd seen Travis disappearing. Croft couldn't be allowed to get away, he reminded himself.

And Travis _was_ his cousin.

* * *

The underground garage was large enough to hold an entire fleet of cars. At the moment, though, there were just two. A Range Rover made to her own personal specs that had cost into six figures, plus a bright yellow Lotus Elise. Until recently there had been a third – an Aston Martin DB7 Virage – but that had managed to end up somewhere at the bottom of a gorge rather the worse for wear. Lara had another Aston on order – a 200mph plus Vanquish – but considering that model hadn't even been officially launched yet she was probably in for quite a wait.

She threw a glance behind her – kept the MP5 trained steadily in that direction. No sign of pursuit yet, but it was coming no doubt.

Lara ignored the cars and instead made her way across the garage to a line of motorcycles. They first two were both Norton Streetfighters, one red, the other blue. They were her favourites, more for sentimental reasons than any performance characteristics. She always made sure she had more than one of them, because over the years she'd tended to go through them at quite a rate. All in all she was probably one of Norton's best customers, though they'd no doubt be quite alarmed if they learned how she treated the things.

As she passed behind the bulk of the Range Rover gunfire erupted again.

She ducked down as the off-roader's windows blew out in cascades of broken glass, gritting her teeth against the yell of outrage that welled up inside her. A second burst of bullets shredded the tires and punched a line of holes in the bodywork.

_Bastard. Absolute bastard._

Lying flat and reigning in her outrage, she returned fire underneath the Range Rover. 

There was a startled yelp, but she recognised the sound as surprise from a near miss rather than pain from a hit. _Move_. She forced herself to break cover, firing another burst of bullets across the Range Rover's bonnet. There was a brief glimpse of Travis as he dove behind the Elise for cover.

_Oh Christ, not that too._

She hit the release for the garage doors and with a whining electric hum they started to roll up. Painfully slowly. Until today she hadn't noticed quite how slow they actually were.

Pulling an open-faced crash helmet down from a hook on the wall she mounted the red Norton and gunned the engine, the MP5 balanced across the bike's handlebars. Snarling she emptied the remainder of the submachine-gun's magazine over the top of the Elise and through the door she'd entered by. The others would be arriving to join in the fun soon too, no question. Maybe this would give them pause.

Another glance at the garage doors. Still not open far enough. She cast the now useless submachine-gun aside, clattering noisily on the concrete floor.

More bullets, resounding off the walls, alarmingly close.

Cursing, Lara flattened herself atop the bike, trying to keep herself low enough so that the Range Rover's riddled bulk gave her some cover. 

_Now._ The garage door would have to be open far enough. She didn't have any more time.

Yanking the bike around, tires raising smoke, she let out the throttle. The tires squealed. The bike leapt forward as though kicked by a mule. Bullets chased after her, kicking up splinters of concrete and raising sparks as they pinged of the garage doors in front of her.

There still wasn't enough room.

Right at the last moment, when it seemed inevitable there was going to be a collision, Lara tipped the bike over onto its side. Sparks flew as the tip of the handlebars scraped along the floor. A bullet ricocheted off the bike's frame, missing her leg by millimetres.

Then she was through, yanking the bike upright again and speeding off, crouching low over the handlebars as bullets buzzed around her. 

None found their target.

* * *

As Lomax stared after the rapidly dwindling dot that marked Lara Croft a figure moved from the concealment of the garage's shadowy, junk-cluttered corner. Lomax looked round as the man moved to stand alongside him, his expression sour.

Rankin, receding black hair slicked back and gleaming, eyes concealed behind the lenses of dark glasses, met his boss's gaze calmly.

"So?" Lomax asked after a couple of heartbeats silence. "You get the job done?"

"Yeah boss." 

Which was a lot more than the rest of them had managed, Lomax thought angrily.

"Good job she took that bike though." Rankin went on, his accent defiantly Sarf London. "Din't have time to do the others. Nice kit she's got 'ere." He stepped past Lomax and ran his hand lovingly along the flank of one of the remaining motorcycles. "'Specially this Ducatti. A 996. Wouldn't mind one of these meself."

"Leave it." Lomax's voice was cold. "We don't have time to be stealing bikes."

"Would I?" Rankin sounded hurt. 

Lomax ignored him. "You can come out from behind there now Travis. Your girlfriend's gone."

Travis rose into view, looking sheepish. He immediately launched into some explanation of his actions that Lomax had no wish to hear. "What's the range on the tracking device," he cut Travis's bleating off.

"The speed she was going? Not bloody enough."

"Then I suggest we fucking well get a move on." Lomax's words came through gritted teeth. _What a bleeding mess_.

* * *

"One thing you gotta understand. We absolutely do not have access to that information. And even if we did we categorically couldn't let you see it in any way whatsoever."

"Oh, absolutely." Emil nodded sagely as he leant across the antiquated dot matrix printer and tore off the topmost sheet of paper. He made it disappear into the inside pocket of his jacket. "Tell me, who are you again? Do I know you?"

That earned him a light punch in the shoulder. "Well enough to stand those pints you promised us I hope."

Emil laughed. "Relax Malc, when have I ever let you down on that score."

Detective Inspector Malcolm Sharpe glanced across at his colleague, DS Paul Ratcliffe. "You remember we always used to swear that Emil had to have some Scottish blood in there somewhere?"

"Yeah, I remember. Tighter than a virgin's. . ."

"Hey, hey. I always paid my dues. Stood my rounds. Give me one example when I didn't." Emil sounded aggrieved.

"Bob Warner's stag night," they immediately chorused in unison.

A disbelieving groan. "You can't. . . I told you, I had my damned wallet stolen."

"Yeah. We all believed that one, didn't we Ratters? A policeman has his wallet stolen. Notices just when it's his round. Totally believable."

"It was the truth!"

"Then there was that other time. Remember Malc?" Ratcliffe was nodding, expression scrupulously bland. "Old Carter's Birthday. Don't you think the timing of that phonecall was a touch suspicious? Just when it's coming up to Emil's turn to get the drinks he runs out on us."

"You're right. I'd forgotten that one."

Emil spluttered indignantly. "Hey guys, you can't seriously think. . ." He shook his head. "Here I am, stopping by to see you. I don't have to come here for this kind of abuse you know."

"No, you can get that anyplace." The three of them laughed.

"So, what you been up to these past few years?" Malcolm Sharpe asked after the laughter had died down. "It was like you dropped off the face of the earth or something."

Emil shrugged, uncomfortable. "Oh, you know. This and that. Did a bit of travelling."

Ratcliffe and Sharpe shared a knowing look, Ratcliffe leaning back in his chair with has hands folded behind his head. "You know what we heard Emil?"

"What did you hear?" A hint of wariness.

"Oh, that you might have been recruited by one of those two lovely institutions that have those big buildings on the river. That you got involved in all that cloak and dagger stuff. Our very own version of James Bond."

Emil smirked. "What, you mean a constant stream of beautiful women to keep my bed warm and life or death showdowns in the secret bases of maniacal super-villains who get off on stroking pussy? Yeah Ratcliffe, every waking moment. I couldn't tell a lie and all that."

Ratcliffe shook his head and grinned. "So you're not going tell us, your old mates? Don't you trust us or something?"

"Oh, I trust you alright. Trust you to spread every word of what I tell you so the entire Metropolitan police force has it down verbatim about five seconds after I'm out the door."

"You know, I could almost be offended by that."

"If it wasn't completely true."

"Well, yeah. . ." 

They shared another laugh.

"So," Sharpe said after a brief period of silence. "Interesting that you happen to be asking about that Soho robbery."

"Um-huh. How's that?"

"Well for starters that old Incher is willing to co-operate with whoever you represent, however unofficially." Ratcliffe put in.

"That too, but do you know that we had a dead body turn up not far from the scene? The dead body of a man who was a former SIS agent, supposedly already long buried and pushing up daisies. His insides looked like a particularly virulent strain of the Ebola virus had been let loose on them."

"Really? That is interesting." Emil knew from the look his two old colleagues shared that whatever he said or did would merely be taken as confirmation to the theories they'd already formed.

"Even more interesting is the witnesses we have. They place a 'large black man' at the scene, apparently assaulting the vic moments prior to his death."

Emil looked carefully from one to the other; didn't get anything other than closed policeman expression back. "Well I can't deny that I'm definitely a 'large' black man," he said at length.

A groan from the two of them in unison.

Ratcliffe: "We walked right into that one didn't we?"

Sharpe: "So you're not even going to give your old pals a hint as to what's going on then?"

"Guys, honestly if I could I'd tell you everything. But I don't know more than a fraction of it myself. And believe me, you're better of out of whatever the fuck this is. I say that fervently."

Two pairs of eyes staring at him. "Alright Emil."

They were disappointed in him, he could tell. Well so be it. Just at the moment he had other concerns than looking after their personal happiness. They'd have to stay disappointed.

"Look guys, it's been great seeing you again really. And I mean it about these drinks. . ."

"Yeah, Yeah," Ratcliffe was nodding. "But you got to go. Places to go. People to see. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Alright then, piss off. See if we care. You're keeping us from all this fascinating paperwork in any case."

"Right." Emil turned away, smiling. "Later guys."

In the corridor he pulled the sheet of paper from his pocket and looked at it. Fives names, with addresses. His eyes moved down the list while his other hand went for his mobile.

Bugger. He'd let the batteries drain. Probably explained why that phonecall to Lara had got cut off so abruptly. . . _Fucking Half-wit_. Well at least it gave him an excuse for not calling Joanna.

He returned to the list of names.

Ms. Annika Bedeau.

Sir Scott Marshall-Thornberry 

Osalan al-Qaddir

Lord Avery Rose.

Mr. Gerhard Weigner.

He frowned. That fourth name. Avery Rose. Now why was that familiar?

* * *

Images dissolved and reformed before his eyes, red and black. Patterns of chaos.

He felt disoriented, rushing down an infinitely deep pit yet soaring upwards at the same time. Surrounded tightly, claustrophobically, by living darkness, watched by a horde of compassionless eyes he was unable to see. Studied microscopically. Ignored and disdained. Alone in a void of ultimate vastness. Heat. Cold. A thousand contradictions piled on top of each other, more than human senses could adequately comprehend.

A weaker mind than his would have disintegrated, pulled apart by conflicting pressures. Luke Charron had experienced it all before however. Even so it was still a struggle to hold onto himself; remember who he was and why he was here.

Abruptly the swirling vortex of chaos around him resolved and vanished.

He staggered. Suddenly there was ground beneath his feet. Two feet, attached to intact limbs. This analogue didn't suffer from the same mutilations that his physical body had endured. His missing eye was restored too. Having binocular vision again was momentarily almost as disorientating as the traverse had been.

The stench hit him like a physical blow. A miasma of decay so powerful and all pervasive it made every other scent he had experienced pale by comparison. Raw and undiluted; decay of a level and intensity that could never be in the physical world he usually inhabited.

Fear. It wasn't an emotion that Luke Charron had much use for, in himself at least. He was _more_. _Above_. But this place was different.

He was on the Battlefield.

Bodies stretched out as far as his vision let him see in every direction. Great mounds and piles of them, moving ceaselessly as unseen scavengers worked in their midst. He was standing on them now, and it was impossible to take a pace without stepping in an exploded body cavity or a swollen, necrotic carcass. He couldn't even tell if there was ground beneath this carpet of destruction and rot. There just seemed to be bodies. As far as he could tell they went down and down beneath his feet forever.

He had not consciously sought to come this particular place. Which meant he had been summoned.

That fear again, stronger than before.

Overhead the sky churned with thick black smoke, whilst a greenish-yellow haze clung low to the masses of bodies on which he trod. Periodically the horizon lit up with flashes that appeared to come from distant explosions, though there was nothing in the way of sound to accompany them. The silence, in a strange way was perhaps the most eerie thing about the place. As if he was the only living thing here.

_War is hell._ This place was a strange inversion of that saying.

A musical laugh came from behind him, impossibly feminine and sensual.

He turned, inclining his head respectfully so that he did not look upon her directly. "My Queen."

"Luke." He shivered at the way that impossible voice caressed his name. That she knew his name and deigned to use it. . . Elation mixed in with the fear.

"Look at me Luke." His gaze was still fixed upon the rotting corpses beneath her feet.

"My Queen?" He could feel himself shaking: unbearable desire.

"Did you not hear me Luke? I asked you to look at me."

_Will that not blind me my Queen?_ But he dared not voice his question, instead concentrating hard on forcing his neck muscles – or the analogue of his neck muscles at least – to tilt his head back. His breath came in ragged gasps.

She was dressed from head to foot in black; a black so deep and perfect that it was like staring into absolute void. It cowled her head and concealed her face in shadows. It clung to her body. . . He swallowed and tried not to think about _that_: gritted his teeth and strove for self-control. 

That blackness covered everything save for one hand.

Luke Charron found himself staring at that hand, captivated. It was white as bone, slender and elegant. Flawless. _Perfect_. He could see the structure of the bones beneath that snowy skin, a mastery of form that no artist or architect could hope to achieve. That single hand grew to become his entire universe. The only thing in existence that mattered a single iota – an absolute obsession.

Without realising it he was suddenly on his knees on that vast carpet of the dead.

"My Queen!" He heard himself cry out as though from a distance of a million miles; felt himself climax as if it was happening to another person. The desire did not diminish in the slightest. The obsession did not fade.

_How can a human being possible bear to gaze upon perfection?_

Finally, after how long he didn't know – centuries or fractions of a second – she shifted slightly, and the blackness cloaking her covered even that one small scrap of flesh.

Luke Charron realised that he was weeping, bereft with loss.

"Good, you are as strong as I had hoped." The words cut through his grief, and suddenly it was gone – as if someone had simply flicked a switch.

"Strong? That was strong?"

"You would like me to show you what would have happened if you had been weak." There was amusement in her voice.

"No." Another profound shudder wracked him. "No, my Queen."

"Then stand. Obsequience bores me."

Luke Charron did as he was bid. He looked around at their surroundings – this monstrous field of carnage and destruction – not quite daring to gaze upon her again. "Might I ask a question my Queen?"

"Of course Luke." Again that indulgent amusement.

He swept a hand to encompass their apocalyptic surroundings. "Why is it that I see this? The Battlefield?"

"You see the Battlefield? Truly?" Tinkling laughter. "Your kind's perceptions amuse me. They are so. . . narrow, but at the same time intense. Perhaps your conversations with my dark strangler have tainted how you see things. Perhaps you should look afresh, untainted by the perceptions of others."

Abruptly his vision blurred and the ground shifted beneath him. When his vision cleared again everything had changed.

The most immediate difference was the smell. The ghastly charnel house miasma was gone, replaced by a heady, sensual fragrance that was in a way just as disturbing. It brought back echoes of the obsessive desire that had so recently faded.

He was standing in an orchard. Trees ran in straight lines to either side of him, laden down with dark red blossom, and it was from these the perfume originated in thick clouds. It was dusk – Luke Charron knew without being told that in this realm it was always dusk – the sky overhead a livid, swirling mass of purple, red and gold.

Beyond the orchard rolling hills stretched as far as the eye could see, and as he looked around he spotted a castle, tall black spires and minarets rising high above the treetops. It was a castle from a faerie-tale rather than reality – home of the wicked faerie-queen, sinister yet at the same time darkly beautiful. The dimensions of it appeared strange and distorted, impossibly contradictory. Escher on a bad acid trip. You could send yourself insane if you tried too hard to figure it out. He quickly looked away.

"Is this then more to your liking?" Charron sensed the laughter beneath his Queen's words.

"Which of them is real? This or the battlefield? Or neither one of them?"

"There are a thousand, thousand realms you might see. All are real and all are false. You will learn in time that there is no difference between reality and falsehood. They are merely matters of perception, and all perception is a lie."

He pondered this; thought he got what she was saying. Humans were incapable, in there present state, of seeing what reality was. Therefore everything that they perceived was a lie. One of the reasons that the change he sought – his Queen sought – must be brought about.

"And what about you my Queen? Is how I see you before me now another lie of my perceptions?"

"Or a truth, if you choose to look at it that way." 

All truth that a human was capable of perceiving was lies. Therefore there was no difference between a lie and a truth. Therefore all lies were also truths. _Did his old friend see a four-armed woman who wore a necklace of skulls and severed penises?_

"You summoned me my Queen?" Charron's spoke tentatively. "At least I did not consciously seek you out." In the periphery of his vision, amongst the trees of the orchard, he thought he saw dark shapes flitting. When he tried to look at them directly however, there was never anything there.

"Yes." The reply came after what felt like a long period of silence. "I wish to hear about my dear step sisters."

Luke Charron felt a jolt of shock. _Step sisters?_ Yet there couldn't be any doubt about what she meant. "They are your sisters?"

He couldn't see her face – if she had a face – beneath the cowl she wore, but he got the strong sense that she was smiling. He felt himself shivering. "I use the term loosely. As a cockroach or a fluke worm is your brother – a being of the same paradigm as yourself. And note that I used the term stepsister. One who is partly of this paradigm and partly of your own. Do you understand?"

He nodded. "Yes my Queen."

"Then come Luke, walk with me and tell me of my stepsisters. And I will tell you of other things you need to know."

Around them the vague shapes flitting through the trees seemed to gather closer, listening in.

. . .

. . .

He came back to himself with a jolt. His breathing was harsh and ragged, and sweat slicked his bare skin. He felt cold, even though the air around him was warm.

Already the memories were fading like those of a dream, slipping through his fingers upon waking. Only vague skeletons lingered. 

He could still remember talking to. . . to _Her_. His heart started thudding hard at the thought. _Her_. Her voice. That he couldn't forget. Each word came back to him as vividly as if it had been burnt into his brain. That arch, feminine voice, darkly sensual and erotic. It sent shivers up his spine.

He listened to the words again, as if he was hearing them for the first time. As he listened the expression on his face became closed and his breathing steadied. Absolute calm and control asserted themselves.

Finally he smiled, perfect teeth gleaming.

As he rose to his feet it appeared for a moment as if he was going to collapse, his prosthetic limb twisting under him. But he caught it; steadied himself. His expression gave no sign of the near embarrassment, or the pain that stabbed up from his stump – sharp and agonising.

Once he was happy that he was steady he reached across for a black robe, hanging from a hook beside him. He pulled it on, covering up his scarred nakedness.

Only then did he let his gaze drop to what lay in front of him.

A body, naked, spread out atop a low bier. Dead obviously, and from the look of it he – the gender was just about discernable, although the genitalia were missing – hadn't died easily. Attuned to the sacrifice – the vessel – Luke Charron could still feel lingering traces of warmth rising from it. Could almost feel it.

Candles burnt at head and foot, scented incense somewhat covering the metallic stench of blood, collected in reservoirs on either side of the bier. More blood still trickled along channels that fed these reservoirs, resembling tar in the soft, flickering light.

Resting upon the body's still chest was Charron's walking stick. It may have been a simple trick of the light, amplified and reflected by the amber set in its grip, but it appeared to glow from within. Expressionless, the candlelight glinting in his eyes – both glass and genuine – he bent carefully and lifted it from its resting place. Sparks cracked, singeing his fingers but he seemed oblivious to any pain.

Concentrating to the exclusion of everything else he took the captured power into himself.

A low moan escaped his lips. Suddenly all the hair on his head and body was standing on end. It was a long time since Luke Charron had held quite so much power within himself. He could feel it crackling in his veins – a strange, intense pleasure-pain sensation – like an especially intoxicating and destructive drug.

It would be so easy – so desirable – to give in to the power and let it all flow free. To reach up and release it into the building above and around him, burning it all to ash, whilst he stood unscathed at its heart. He found himself laughing, madness mixed with joy.

_Control_. Power was all about control. Without control you were nothing more than spoilt infant knocking down sandcastles.

Still able to feel the crackling, burning sensation, as if his blood had turned to fire, his gaze dropped again to the body in front of him. _A vessel now empty_.

It left him sickened. A lifeless, useless shell; roadkill, excrement; abomination. The stolen power flowing through him heightened his senses so he could see every detail in stark clarity. Every pore and blemish. Every droplet of slowly congealing blood and evaporating sweat. The foul reek of it assailed his nostrils – intensified – and he could feel the heat slowly bleeding away into the air. Soon the remains would be as cold and lifeless as stone.

Cold anger grew inside him until it formed a towering monolith. _How could they accept this? How could they tolerate being so small and pathetic? So powerless and blind to what was around them. So accepting and self satisfied and superior, when the reality was they were rodents. _Mensch_. Kin to cockroaches when they laughingly assumed they were masters of all they surveyed_.

Calmly furious he released a small fragment of the power he had absorbed.

He visualised the molecules of the air in front of him – around the corpse – vibrating. He visualised the power he had released flowing into those molecules and augmenting those vibrations, slowly but inexorably amplifying the speed and strength of them.

For a couple of seconds nothing happened. Then there was a whoosh. The air around the corpse erupted in a mass of blue tinged flames, roaring and crackling.

As Charron watched, apparently impassive and disinterested, the flames grew higher and brighter, white hot. Flesh crisped and charred. Fat melted and ran like candle-tallow, sizzling and running away down the channels that had earlier taken the blood. Gas trapped within the body expanded until it exploded amid loud pops, the stomach cavity rupturing and spilling organs into the blaze. The sickly sweet perfume of burning flesh filled the air.

Charron didn't look away until the flames died down again and all that left atop the bier was a mess of ash and blackened bone.

Abruptly he turned and limped from the room, using the walking stick to help support him. Inside the sense of crackling power had faded somewhat, losing its immediacy and intensity. But it was still there, should he have need to call on it. 

A smile traced across his lips, then disappeared. All being well he would have need.

* * *

Corvus Rein turned away and shuddered. He didn't like to admit it even to himself, but that woman scared the hell out of him. 

Not something that a former career criminal and supposed tough guy – someone who had once gloried under the name of 'Carrion' – could feel comfortable with. But not something he could realistically deny either.

_If only Black Dog could see you now._

But the Black Dog had been in Riker's for the past ten years and was likely to remain there until they carried him out in a cheap plywood coffin. And, he thought, if the Black Dog had possessed the sense god gave a mule even he would have been afraid of Claudia Dumane.

As the morning sun beat down on a head that was going inexorably bald –_ wasn't England supposed to be a cold and wet?_ – Corvus Rein's gaze fixed upon an area of pavement. Sheets hid the ground from view and it was roped and bollarded off. The body – apart from those bits still glued to the pavement beneath that sheet – had been carted off several minutes ago. No question it was dead.

It was her eyes he decided at length. There were other things too of course, like the fact she topped his six-foot height by at least three inches, and she couldn't weigh much less than his two-hundred pounds, all of that muscle. Mainly though, it was those eyes.

Empty and completely devoid of emotion, bright as jewels.

They reminded him of the eyes of a death-row inmate he'd once met. A serial killer by the name of Mace Trudeau. He shuddered at the memory. Mace Tredeau had had eyes exactly like Claudia Dumane's. Mace Trudeau had scared him witless too.

They'd finally executed that fucker last year, he'd heard.

". . . no sign of any bodies in the explosion. Looks like our assassins managed to get away." Claudia, speaking into her mobile phone. Like her eyes her voice was empty of emotion, devoid of any kind of accent. Her name sounded vaguely French to him, but he had no idea where she came from despite the fact he'd worked with her for well over a year now.

She wasn't the sort of person to indulge in small talk.

No question who she was talking to. Another smaller shudder. Him. The boss. The one person who scared him more than either Claudia or Mace ever had. The man who, for no apparent reason, had plucked him off a New York street and given him a job. More than that. A _place_.

The man he'd half managed to convince himself was the Anti-Christ, live and in the flesh.

Still, the world needed a good shake up. That was Corvus Rein's philosophy.

". . .yes. Right before he jumped he reportedly shouted the words 'Kindly One'. There are at least twenty witnesses to that effect." A pause as Claudia listened to Luke Charron's reply on the other end of the line.

Corvus Rein's eyes settled on that area of sheet-covered pavement again. He'd seen death in a multitude of forms and had thought he'd become hardened – even blasé – about it. That, though, had been seriously unpleasant. 

Picture a paper bag filled with overripe tomatoes. Now drop that paper bag onto concrete pavement from a great height. That gave a pretty good idea of what had happened. Add in the fact that whoever the jumper had been hadn't died right away – had indeed been conscious for nearly two minutes after the impact. . . Well Mark Rein definitely wouldn't be choosing jumping as a way of ending his life. 

A hose hooked up the exhaust pipe; run the engine. Slip peacefully away. Much more like it. Corvus had arranged this set-up for a number of shall we say. . . not quite willing participants. . . so he knew what he was talking about. Of course, it ruined the car's interior, but that wasn't generally at the top of a person's priorities when they got to this point.

". . . we're less than two miles from the other reported incident." Claudia's voice broke into his thoughts.

As Corvus looked at her he wondered briefly why he'd been brought along. At the moment he felt about as useful as a limp dick in a whorehouse.

"Just going for a quick smoke," he mumbled. There was no response, and he doubted that Claudia had even heard him, but he didn't let that stop him walking about twenty yards and turning into a side street.

He wasted no time in lighting up, sighing in appreciation as he drew the smoke into his lungs and the nicotine took effect.

_Filthy habit. Inviting lung cancer._

That, as he remembered, had come from a crack-addicted prostitute he'd been sleeping with a few years back. Not a hint of irony. She was dead now, like so many people he'd known. Double-crossed the wrong dealer.

Still, Corvus had always been of the opinion that if he survived long enough to die of lung cancer he'd count himself ahead on points.

Taking another drag on the cigarette he looked up at the small shop opposite him.

_The Wiccan Way_ it was called. A dingy looking place, which from appearances didn't do a lot of business.

_Wiccan_. Wasn't that some sort some new age pagan witchcraft bullshit? He thought it was.

For a moment Corvus was half tempted to go over and take a look. It might be a laugh, and as yet the morning had been completely devoid of any of those. The temptation quickly faded as he remembered Claudia. He was acquainted with enough witches at the moment, thank you.

He started abruptly. Was that someone standing there? A small, childlike figure in the shop-window? For a time he stared, but he couldn't tell for certain. The interior of the shop was too dark and shadowy to properly make anything out. After a moment he thought he saw eyes, bright shining disks of copper that bored straight through him. . .

But no. Real eyes didn't look like that.

He blinked once, then let out a deep breath. There, nothing. He was imagining things. A low, shaky laugh. _Stupid fuckwit_.

He dropped the cigarette and ground it into the pavement beneath the sole of his shoe. Then he turned and walked back to the main street. Best not keep Claudia waiting. That was one person he definitely didn't want mad at him at the moment.

Inside he felt unaccountably cold, like he'd just had a very lucky escape indeed.

* * *

"Going somewhere?"

Emil looked up at the familiar voice. For a moment he simply stared at her without saying anything. 

Joanna Ironheart looked pale but composed. If she obviously wasn't a hundred percent healthy she equally obviously wasn't about to collapse either, he decided at length. Aside from a dressing marring one smooth cheek there was no external sign of injury. The rest would be hidden beneath the dark, sober looking suit she was wearing.

"I won't ask whether the doctors know you're not still in bed."

"Good. Because I won't answer."

Was that a flash of humour he'd seen there? It was difficult to tell for sure with Joanna. If so it was quickly gone again.

"So, have you actually managed to find anything while I've been laid up in bed, or have you been sitting on your hands?" 

_Charming as ever_, he noted wryly. She fell into step with him, apparently able to keep pace easily enough. Although Emil had the feeling that she wouldn't let any discomfort show even if she was about to keel over and die the next second.

Instead of answering her question he took the folded sheet of paper from his pocket and handed it to her.

She grunted as she took it. After inspecting the list of names for a few seconds she asked: "What exactly am I looking at here? Not your Christmas card list I hope."

"Very bloody funny. No, it's a list of owners of safety deposit boxes."

"Fascinating." Her tone was bland.

"Yes, I thought so too." He could do bland too. "More fascinating still is the fact that their safety deposit boxes were blown open in a robbery yesterday. You know, the building that exploded while Timothy Hutchings happened to be standing outside the front of it?"

She just grunted.

_Well-done Emil. What excellent detective work._ He held back a sigh. Some hint of appreciation, however minuscule, would be nice. "I draw your attention to the fourth name on that list in particular. Before you showed up I was off to pay him a visit."

"Lord Avery Rose? Any reason in particular you find that name interesting?"

"Well I've heard of him." Quite deliberately he wasn't very forthcoming.

Several heartbeats passed.

"You've heard of him? And on that basis you've assumed he's involved in this somehow?" She didn't sound impressed. Nothing new there.

"I was about to explain. Avery Rose is an American millionaire who bought himself a title and some land in this country. Lord something of somewhere. The exact details escape me just at the moment. Made his fortune in the arms trade. At least quasi-legitimate." The distaste in his tone said that quasi-legitimate or not, arms dealers were down there with the lowest dregs of society – child-molesters, lawyers, Manchester United supporters – in his book. "Suffered a stoke a few years back and ended up paralysed and bed-bound."

"I still don't discern any particular reason for your interest."

"He also happens to be a collector of ancient artefacts and antiquities. The sort of artefacts and antiquities that our 'friends' have from time to time shown an interest in. If you get my drift." 

"Vaguely interesting." The admission seemed grudging. "What about these others names then?"

"Let's see shall we. Annika Bedeau. Eldest daughter of a Swiss banker. Has pads in Monte Carlo and Belgravia. In this country we'd call her an 'It' girl. Can't see why she'd have anything that'd be of particular interest to this Charron. But. . ." He shrugged. "Moving onto Sir Scott Marshall-Thornberry. Least promising of the lot. Leading pro-hunting campaigner and member of the countryside-alliance. Sits on a couple of government committees and quangos. Boring, stuck-up old tosspot on the available evidence. Then there's Osalan al-Qaddir. International jeweller. Values his privacy. Originally hales from the Yemen. Maybe." Another shrug. "What I've found on him so far isn't much to go on. Finally we have Gerhard Weigner. Another banker, this time based in Frankfurt, though he spends at least a month a year in London. Could have had business dealings with this Charron in the past I guess."

Joanna made no comment.

Silence. The classic interrogation technique. Leave enough of it in the right places and your average interrogatee will usually fall over themselves trying to fill it, often hanging themselves in the process. Emil knew this better than anyone. Nevertheless he capitulated.

"Look, out of the lot of them you tell me that Avery Rose doesn't sound by far the most promising. A place to start at least."

"We've already got a place to start. And end."

They'd arrived at the basement level car pack. Emil didn't feel there was much point arguing anymore. If she was so set against them working together then fine. He'd do it on his own and to hell with Franz, Evangeline and the rest. 

He strode rapidly towards his car – a silver Lexus IS200. The vehicles around it – BMW's, Audi's, a Porsche Boxster – spoke wordlessly about the affluence of the building's residents. "Well, I'm going to pay our friend Avery a social call. You can come along if you like. To make sure I don't screw up, or whatever. Or you can do your own thing. I'm easy." He forced himself to sound nonchalant, as if he couldn't give a damn. 

"I'll come. Like you say, someone's got to keep an eye on you."

He glanced across at her. She was standing next to her own car – a metallic blue Peugeot 406 coupe, which blended seamlessly with all the expensive machinery around it. As he watched she appeared to wilt before his eyes, leaning listlessly on the car's bonnet to support herself, the heel of one hand pressed against her temple.

Without thinking about it he crossed the space until he was at her side.

She shrugged off his effort to support her angrily and took a couple of paces away from him, folding her arms across her chest like a barrier between them. She stood rigidly straight – expressionless. He could tell she was forcing herself not to show any further signs of weakness.

"I'll drive I think, if that's okay. I don't want your death in a car wreck on my conscience."

"I can. . ."

Emil cut her off. "Okay, put it another way. I don't want anyone else's death in a car crash involving you on my conscience. Can you deal with that?"

Surprisingly she acquiesced and followed him without another word back over to the Lexus. She must, he reflected, be feeling even worse than she looked.

* * *

Lara leant hard into the corner, revelling in the feel wind blowing in her face and the rasping growl of the engine beneath her. Vibration from the road transmitted itself through the motorcycle's frame and into her body, adding a feral wildness to the experience that she had always loved.

She was going far, far too fast, both for the legal speed limit and for anything resembling safety on these winding country lanes. A single tiny mistake – a momentary lapse of concentration – and it would all end up in a pile of mangled machinery and flesh. A fast violent end much in keeping with the way she had lived.

She didn't care. In fact she found it exhilarating. For a short period of time all that mattered was the road in front of her, the whole world contracting down until the only thing that remained was that one, simple truth. She'd learned many different meditation and relaxation techniques over the years from all over the world. When it came to it none of them were quite so simple and effective at clearing her worries as a fast motorcycle ride.

Eventually she eased up on her breakneck pace and let out a breath. She was getting close to her destination now. A couple miles, or less. Time to come back to the real world.

Lara had been on the road for more than four hours and it was now the middle of the afternoon, the sun still blazing down from a clear blue sky. At the speed she'd been going the journey could have been made in less than half the time if she'd wanted, but she hadn't come directly. Since speeding through the gates of her Surrey home she'd chosen her direction almost at random, picking turns purely out of whim and concentrating only on the road ahead and the motorcycle beneath her. Occasionally she'd paused to make sure she was heading in approximately the correct generally direction, but even so her chaotic route had encompassed a large and varied portion of southern England.

At the one stop she'd made – a petrol station just outside of Fareham – she'd finally managed to get through to her butler, Winston, and warn him to stay away from the house for a couple of days. Perhaps the worst thing about that conversation had been how calm it had been, as if the morning's events had been absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. Winston had even enquired if he should make arrangements with the building firm they used _before_ she'd got round to mentioning the damage that had been done.

Worrying, she'd reflected as she hung up, that they'd both become so blasé about the business of her being shot at that it was scarcely worth commenting on anymore. When your life got to that stage it was probably time to take a long hard look exactly where you were heading.

Lara's bike crested a rise and suddenly, against the backdrop of the Quantock hills, she could see her destination. Set amid several hundred acres of land, behind a perimeter of stone walls, iron railings and ancient oak trees, the rooftops of Tarr House rose imperiously into view. It was large enough that her own home would have fit inside just one of its wings – a monster of a building dating from the seventeenth century. She'd been here before and there was an uncomfortable feeling of stepping back, into her past.

Cruising at little more than thirty miles an hour now, Lara spotted the turning that led up to the baroque wrought-iron front gates. She pulled the bike to a halt there, sitting astride it as the engine idled and staring up at the place she had come to visit.

Somewhere inside that great bulk, bed-bound and alone – his wife had left him and taken their children with her shortly after the stroke – was a man that Lara had once wanted to kill.

_Well, alone except for a small army of nursing staff, attendants and security guards_, she amended, letting the engine die completely and kicking the Norton's stand down. Dry puffs of dust rose from the hard baked drive beneath the soles of her boots as she dismounted and took a couple of paces towards those gates. 

There was a security camera, Lara noted as she pulled her crash helmet off, a bead of sweat trickling down the back of her neck. It was positioned to show anyone who approached the gates, but she judged that both herself and the Norton were out shot.

Momentarily she toyed with the urge to walk straight up to it, announce her presence and demand to be let inside. Just out of curiosity as to how Avery Rose would respond to such a brazen approach.

That idea's appeal quickly fled. If Rose remained true to what she remembered of him, he undoubtedly had a team of trained monkeys whose sole task was to filter out any unwanted interruptions. It was probable that he'd never even get to hear about her visit.

Instead she turned back to the motorcycle, running one hand along its flank, tracing with a fingertip the deep scratch a bullet had left on the side of the fuel tank. "There, there. Poor baby." The words were murmured beneath her breath, almost inaudible. "I'll get you fixed up good as new as soon as I can. I promise."

When she was a girl all of her friends had been mad about horses. To the point of obsession in some cases. Lara had never felt the same – stupid bloody beasts had always been her opinion. Motorbikes had been different though. . . At eighteen she'd bought one out of her allowance to the complete horror of her father. A taster of the conflicts to come between the two of them.

Pushing thoughts of the past away, Lara drew the SIG pistol from the waistband of her cargo pants. It was a type she'd never handled before, and it was always a good idea to be familiar with your weapon before you had to use it in anger. Learning about a gun's idiosyncrasies in the middle of a firefight was not the best way of doing things.

A quality weapon she concluded quickly; solid and weighty in her hand. Perhaps even superior to the Berettas and Brownings she was more accustomed to. Not that she'd expected anything less. The Swiss company who made it had a reputation for making excellent, if expensive, weaponry. An empty chamber and a full magazine of fifteen 9mm bullets a quick inspection showed.

She aimed it at a nearby tree, sighting along it. _The proof of the pudding as they say_. . . But probably not a good idea just now, all things considered.

Putting the gun away again, she glanced down at her watch. Eleven minutes to four. Her gaze lifted critically to the clear blue sky. Get the bike out of sight and find an unobtrusive way of getting in, she decided.

It wasn't as if there was any great hurry or anything.

If she'd spent a few more minutes checking over her motorcycle she might have noticed the small foreign object that was mounted on the underside of its fuel tank.

* * *

"We've got her again. She's stopped."

"You sure."

"Yes I'm fucking sure." Langer had been more than a little testy since he'd come to his senses again. Embarrassed, they'd assumed, from allowing a woman to get the better of him. Everyone had scrupulously avoided making any mention of the incident. Well, except for Travis of course, but Travis had quickly shut up once Lomax had pointed out they'd found him cowering behind a car. Strangely that silence appeared to have made Langer's mood worse rather than better.

"About bloody time," Lomax muttered from the driver's seat.

It had not been an easy time, these last few hours, trying to keep the trace on Croft's bike in range, yet at the same time avoiding being pulled over by the police for speeding. Those two factors had appeared for long periods to be mutually exclusive – or at least pretty close to it.

They'd actually lost the signal on no less than six separate occasions, including this past one, only for it to quite by chance reappear again each time.

"Yeah, I want to have myself a little chat with Ms. Croft. About the politeness of sneaking up behind a man and clouting him over the back of the head."

"You mean as opposed to the politeness of breaking into a woman's house and shooting the place to smithereens, hey Langer?"

"Hah, bloody hah. You know that no one likes you anymore, don't you Simon?"

There was a growl of annoyance from Lomax. "No one is going to be doing any talking with Croft, do I make myself clear? We're going to take that fucking statue off her. Not engage in philosophical discussion."

"Assuming of course that it's Croft we've been following."

"What?!" Langer sounded incredulous.

Lomax knew what Simon was getting at straightaway. He'd seen it earlier and pushed it to one side on the basis he couldn't do anything about it anyway. "The way the vehicle we're following is being driven – the erratic, not to say downright schizophrenic route it's taken – suggests the driver at least strongly suspects they're being followed."

"Vehicle? Driver?"

"The stop Croft made when we lost her the first time?" Explaining to idiot children. "She had ample opportunity to switch vehicles, or find the tracking device and deposit it on someone else." 

Langer groaned. "If you two knew this then why the hell haven't you said anything? Why the hell are we just following along blindly?"

After a moment Lomax sighed. "Because Langer, we hardly have much choice, do we? If she's switched vehicles then basically we're screwed."

"Effing marvellous."

Lomax wondered briefly if the blow to Langer's head had caused a personality swap with Travis. Travis, for a wonder, was keeping quiet and not complaining. "How far ahead is she?"

"Just over a mile and a half now. Still not going anywhere. We want to turn left here."

Lomax did as instructed and took the turn Langer had indicated. A National Heritage sign indicted Tarr House, one and a half miles ahead. 

A short while later his phone rang. It was Hicks. "Do you know where we are?"

"The ass end of nowhere. Also known to some as Somerset." Lomax's answer was rather sharper than he'd intended. "What are you getting at Hicks?"

Hicks' response consisted of two words. A name.

Lomax felt his heart thud. Avery Rose. The man whose safety deposit box they'd broken into yesterday. The One-Legged Man hadn't let them in on that particular bit of information, but Lomax had always been of the opinion that it paid to find out all you could about a job. What you didn't know could hurt you.

"You're sure?" Even as he asked the question Lomax knew it was a stupid one. Hicks would not have called him unless he was absolutely certain. "You know that Croft has stopped up ahead?"

"Yes. Rankin said."

Another stupid question. Rankin would have spotted it as soon as Langer, if not before.

The Audi A4 crested a rise, and suddenly in front of them, looming over the treetops, was Tarr house. Lomax stared at its imposing bulk, an ominous feel growing inside him. _What the hell did Lara Croft know about Avery Rose?_ And, perhaps more importantly, what did she know about this business that they didn't?

* * *

As Lomax and company were coming in sight of Tarr house a silver BMW 7-series, driven at controlled speed, turned off the main road onto a series of narrow country lanes, the Quantock Hills rising up in front of it.

Alone in the backseat, Luke Charron stared out of the window, his eyes concealed behind the lenses of his customary dark glasses. It appeared that he was watching the scenery passing outside the windows, but in reality his gaze was fixed on a point much, much further away than that.

If asked why he was visiting Avery Rose he wouldn't have been able to answer in terms that the average person would find reasonable. Explaining how a conjunction of prevailing probabilities was resolving around a particular place and person would have earned him at best a blank look and dismissal as some kind of weird new-age nut. Going on to say that he had been _shown_ as much would only make things worse.

No, much better to say he was playing a hunch. Going with a feeling.

That was acceptable. People would be able to relate to that, and even think they understood him. People didn't want truth. They wanted lies that were the right shape for them to believe in. Whether they knew it, or admitted it, or not.

A hint of a smile curved the corners of his mouth. He studied it in the reflection in the window. A knowing smile he decided. People didn't like 'knowing'. At least not in other people when they themselves were in the dark. After a moment's pause he adjust the expression slightly so it was merely humorous. A man who was simply happy with the state of the world.

Always the mask. Never let it slip.

* * *

Lara Croft was lying flat on her belly, concealed by the long grass that grew on either side of the road leading up to Tarr House's gate.

She'd managed to pick a spot where she was lying directly on top of a thistle, its spikes prickling and scratching against the bare skin of her stomach. There was also an extremely large looking bee, buzzing insistently less than an inch in front of her face, constantly distracting her gaze and refusing to go away. Unfortunately, just at the moment, she didn't dare move.

She listened to the throbbing growl of the van's diesel engine as it drove slowly up to, then past her, scant feet away.

Finally she allowed herself to let out the breath she'd been holding. Stupid really. Rationally there was no way that anyone inside the van could hear anyone else's breathing over the engine noise. Still, rationality was sometimes a fairly remote concept.

The van stopped about five yards ahead of her in front of the gates, engine idling. It was white – a Ford Transit – and Lara suffered a momentary flashback to yesterday. Lomax and the others. Somehow they'd found her.

The feeling passed quickly. She'd seen that particular van go up in flames. A closer look showed that this one belonged to a local catering firm. The driver's side window had been wound down and she could see a forearm, meaty and sunburned, with altogether too much in the way of thick black body hair.

A deep male voice – broad west-country accent almost impenetrable – spoke something she didn't quite catch into the gate intercom. A couple of seconds later a reply came back, distorted by electronic crackle. Again Lara missed what was said.

Whatever, the van appeared to be expected. After a few more seconds delay the gate began to slide open. This was the opportunity she'd been waiting for.

Lara moved quickly and in near silence. She sprang into a crouch and darted behind the van, keeping its bulk between her and the security camera. There was a brief glimpse of the van driver's face in the door mirror – heavily bearded, his eyes hidden by a faded red baseball cap – but thankfully he appeared to be concentrating on the retracting gate. Then she was round the other side of the van and out of sight.

Abruptly the engine note changed, becoming harsher. The wheel beside her started to turn and the van began to pull forward. Lara broke into a crouching sprint, keeping parallel to it as it accelerated away.

The squeeze between it and the frame of the gate was painfully tight, her shoulder jarring bruisingly against the van's metal side. Then she was through and the van was pulling away, beyond her ability to keep pace with. Lara dove to one side, flattening herself in the grass again as it drew away from her and disappeared over a slight rise.

She lay like that for a few more seconds until she was sure it was far enough away. Then she lifted her head and looked around cautiously. The security camera was pointing in the same direction as before, away from her position, and the gates were three-quarters of the way to sliding shut again.

_Well that went smoothly enough, all things considered._ Lara rose carefully to her feet and started walking in the direction the van had disappeared. _Here's hoping the rest of it goes just as smoothly._

* * * 

"Over here! Got it!" Rankin called out, struggling to pull the Norton Streetfighter upright from the clinging tangle of undergrowth. He swore briefly as the waist high stinging nettles brushed across his knuckles, instantly raising a mottled rash.

Simon was the first one to his side and gave him a hand pulling it free.

"Odd, don't you think?" Simon asked once they'd finished.

Rankin shrugged. "Me? I don't think. Not in the job description. That's what Lomax is for. I wouldn't want to step on his toes or anything."

"Is that right?"

Rankin started at the voice that came from about a metre behind him. "Bloody hell boss. Don't go sneaking up on people like that. You don't want to end up another man short, do you?"

There was a long pause as it dawned on Rankin how badly that could be misconstrued.

"So, she just dumped it then." Some of the tension bled away as Lomax finally spoke again.

"Looks like it," Simon confirmed.

"Tracking device is still exactly where I installed it, underneath the fuel tank." Rankin butted in, eager to appear useful after that verbal faux pas. "Doesn't look like anyone has touched it."

"Interesting." Lomax turned to look at Tarr House's perimeter wall, just visible through the tangle of undergrowth and tree trunks. "So is she in there, or was all this some kind of elaborate decoy?"

"Remember that conversion we had a few years ago? About overestimating the enemy being just as dangerous as underestimating them. How it makes you second guess yourself until you end up unable to do anything productive."

Lomax grunted. "I remember that conversation well Simon." He held his old friend with his gaze. "Is that how you view her then? As an enemy?"

Simon's expression was bland. "I'd prefer not to have to shoot her if that's what you mean."

"And if it comes down to a choice between shooting her and saving ourselves?"

"If it comes down to that Scott, then I think we've lost either way. Don't you?"

It wasn't until a cough came from behind them that they looked away from each other. Langer. "Much as I enjoy this teddy bears' picnic, are we going to actually get round to doing anything here? I can feel myself growing old."

Lomax gave a fractional nod. "I'll trust that your advice is, as always, good then. Shall I Simon?" He turned away from the former SAS man.

"So." Lomax was effectively talking to himself now. "She knows the statue used to belong to Avery Rose. And she's interested enough to come all the way down here to see if he can shed any light on it. On top of that, to judge from where she's dumped her bike, she doesn't think she's going to be a welcome guest. Does that sound about it?"

"It would seem logical." This was Hick's. Now only Travis hadn't joined them. He was standing off to one side, ostensibly watching the road, expression sullen.

"Bloody hell. He does Mr. Spock as well as Billy Graham," Langer muttered under his breath, though plenty loud enough for them all to here. Everybody ignored him.

"Then we should probably go and fetch her, don't you think?" Lomax continued as if no one had said anything. "Who knows, Mr. Rose might even be grateful."

"Oh look, is that a flying pig I see over there?"

"If that was meant to be wit Langer, please don't. I'm not in the mood." After making sure that the Australian understood that he _really_ meant it he glanced across at Rankin.

"Yeah boss?"

"Disable the bike. I don't want a repeat of this morning."

Rankin nodded. First off he pulled his suppresser fitted pistol and seemed intent on doing the deed with that. After a moment though he put it away again. "Nah, it'd be criminal. This is almost a work of art." Instead he pulled a miniature tool-kit from a pocket of the overalls he wore and went to work.

* * *

Gordon Mowbray was the head of security for the Rose household. Aged in his mid-fifties he was a dour looking man, stocky in build with a bristly looking steel grey moustache and a complexion that had had the tendency to turn bright red at the slightest hint of anger.

An ex-army man of twenty years service, he appeared the embodiment of all those Sergeant-Major stereotypes, born to scream his lungs out on a parade ground. In this case though, appearances couldn't have been further from the truth. The reality was that Gordon was a quiet, reflective man with a quick, incisive mind – albeit one that was lumbered with the imagination of a stone.

Perhaps his greatest asset, however – from the point of view of his employer – was his absolute and unswerving loyalty. That, along with a steely doggedness of character, made him just about perfect for his current job. No one got past him, and nothing kept him from carrying out his employer's wishes to the letter.

He watched the silver BMW pull up to the gate on the screen in front of him with a critical eye, arms folded firmly across his chest. He knew for a fact that there were no scheduled appointments today, and with the delivery of the next two days food having taken place fifteen minutes ago there should have been no one entering or leaving Tarr House until the nurses' shift changed in an just over an hour's time.

Avery Rose did not permit unscheduled visitors anymore. Not even from members of his own family. This constituted a blip on the order of the day. Gordon Mowbray was averse to blips.

"Can I help you Gentlemen? You appear to be lost." His tone, as the driver's window slid smoothly down was politely unwelcoming – a doorman at an exclusive gentleman's club.

The voice that came back didn't come from the driver. Instead it floated from someone unseen in the back seat, distinctly American and containing a hint of what sounded like amusement. "I have an appointment to see Mr. Rose."

"Really? And what would your name be? As far as I'm aware _Lord_ Rose has no appointments scheduled for today."

"Ah, yes. Lord. You know, that had quite slipped my mind. Profuse apologies. What must you think of me?" The amusement was more pronounced. "My name is Luke Charron, and I assure you, I do have an appointment with _Lord_ Rose. Quite an urgent appointment."

Graham Mowbray felt a sudden disquiet. Something about that voice. . . "I'm afraid you must be mistaken sir. I don't appear to have your name down."

"Mr. . . Mowbray." Gordon felt a shiver at hearing his own name. How. . ? "Perhaps you would like to check the list again. I'm sure it would be _so_ easy to overlook my name, and I would hate for you to make a mistake. Don't you remember the telephone conversation we had yesterday?"

_Telephone conversation? What the hell was this Yank talking about? There had been no telephone conversation. . ._ But suddenly he wasn't quite so certain of himself. That voice. . . There was definitely something about it that was very familiar, and now that he came to think about it there had been a telephone conversation yesterday. . . Why was his memory so hazy all of a sudden? Normally it was one thing that he could rely on with absolute certainty. Now, though, it was like he was looking at the past through thick clouds of distorting narcotic smoke. 

Suddenly he found himself shivering, the air around him unbearably cold.

He looked at the list of the day's appointments, just to reassure himself that this Yank really was talking crap and he wasn't going insane.

A jolt. There it was. Bold as day and completely unmissable – 4:45 p.m., Luke Charron, asterisked as urgent.

No, it hadn't been there earlier. _It hadn't_. The shivering was worse – full-blown shaking. He had to bite down hard to prevent his teeth from chattering. Unbidden a bubble of memory floated to the surface: himself, hanging up the phone and jotting the appointment down.

How the hell had he forgotten that? A rush of burning shame hit him.

"M-my apologies sir. I seem to have been mistaken. Please forgive me. It's been a hectic day, not that that's any excuse."

"No problem at all Mr. Mowbray. I quite understand, and I won't bring the subject up again."

"Th-Thank you." Gordon reached out, his hand still trembling, and activated the gate control. "I'll have somebody meet you at the front door." Numbly he watched as the BMW moved smoothly forward, then disappeared from the camera's field of view.

It was about a minute later when he blinked again, looking around in a manner that suggested confusion.

_Hadn't there been a car? He could have sworn there was a car._ But the camera didn't lie and there was nothing there in front of him. His head felt slightly blurred, as if he'd just been asleep, though of course that wasn't possible. Probably someone using the end of the drive to turn around, he decided. Now what had he been doing?

_Get a hold of yourself man._

Briefly he found himself wondering how the hell he could possibly be feeling cold. Only a few minutes earlier he'd been thinking how insufferably hot the day was.

* * *

The last arrivals to the party turned onto the drive leading up to Tarr House's gates.

"Big place," Emil commented, more to break the silence than because he thought it was a worthwhile comment.

"Selling automatic rifles to fourteen year olds in Africa pays well, it seems."

He glanced across at Joanna. "You okay?"

"I'll refer you to the answer I gave last time you asked that question."

Emil grunted. "You sound like a damned lawyer. Or a politician." In his opinion she looked like she should still be in that hospital bed, wan and distant. However, since they were proposing to interview a bedbound tetraplegic rather than make another assassination attempt she'd probably manage.

"No need to get nasty about it."

The wrought-iron gates in front them were firmly closed, heavy and forbidding. Emil drew the Lexus to a halt, taking note of the security camera and the intercom. Now of course came the difficult bit. Somehow persuading Avery Rose that it was in his best interests to speak to them. He flicked a switch on the dashboard and the window slid silently down.

"Is there a problem? You appear to have made a wrong turn." Behind the electronic crackle the voice speaking out of the intercom was impassive, apparently indifferent. Not, Emil thought, a particular auspicious start.

"Have we? I was under the impression that we were in exactly the right place. This is Tarr House isn't it? Home of Lord Avery Rose?"

"I'm sorry, Tarr House is not open the public."

"Really? Shame. Such a magnificent piece of English heritage too. It almost seems criminal. However, interesting as it may be, we're not here in the hope of viewing Lord Rose's no doubt magnificent collection of _object d'art_."

"So what are you here for Mr. . ?"

Emil heard the note of impatience in the other person's voice. _Better stop messing around here; otherwise you're likely to end up talking to a brick wall._ "I was rather hoping to speak to Lord Rose in fact."

"Lord Rose does not see anybody without an appointment."

"Okay, in that case how would I go about arranging an appointment?"

"If you don't already know that then Lord Rose would obviously not wish to have an appointment with you, would he?"

Emil bit back the retort that sprang to mind at the smug, faintly superior note in that voice. Instead he took a wallet from a pocket and displayed the identification inside clearly to the camera. "You may wish to take a note of the serial number below the photograph, for verification purposes."

"I may indeed. . . Detective Inspector Ngonge." If he did go the trouble of verifying the ID it would be confirmed as absolutely genuine. The police records office would get back the information that the badge belonged to a Detective Inspector Emil Ngonge assigned to a special taskforce, all other information top-level classified. "Now what is it that you wish Detective Inspector? As I said before, no one sees Lord Rose without an appointment. I'm afraid that is true for the police as well."

It was at least said slightly more respectfully than before.

Emil manufactured a sigh of exasperation. "Look, Mr. . . I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name, or what you do around here."

A long pause. Emil raised his eyebrow promptingly at the camera.

"Mowbray. Gordon Mowbray. Head of Security for Lord Rose's estates."

"Mr. Mowbray, I appreciate Lord Rose's physical condition. Really, I do. And I would not be here on a trivial matter, I assure you. What I have to say to Lord Rose concerns an important matter that I am certain he will be extremely interested in hearing about."

"Perhaps if you care to tell me what this matter is I can bring it to Lord Rose's attention, and he can decide whether he wishes to see you or not."

"I'm afraid I cannot divulge that information to you Mr. Mowbray." Emil let an audible note of impatience creep into his voice. "Nor do I think Lord Rose would appreciate me divulging it."

"In that case I'm afraid I'm going to have to say good bye. I'd like to say it was a pleasure. . ."

Emil snarled. "Mr. Mowbray!" A moment's pause, and when he spoke again his voice was calm once more. "Up to now I've refrained from mentioning phrases like 'obstruction of a police investigation', court orders and so on. It's not nice. It's not friendly, and generally it does no one any favours. . . However. . . Look Mr. Mowbray, I want to be reasonable here, but you're not helping me much. If you'd inform Lord Rose that valuable items of his property were stolen yesterday, and we want to talk to him about that. That's the most I can possibly say to you. I can tell that you're a loyal employee, with your employer's best interests at heart, but do you really think this is benefiting anyone?"

A pause.

"Very well Detective Inspector. I shall inform Lord Rose. Wait there please." The intercom went dead.

They waited.

"You expect him to see us on the basis of that then, do you."

Emil looked across at Joanna. "Why not? It was more or less the truth."

"That wasn't the question I asked."

He shrugged. "If I was Avery Rose I'd certainly speak to us. Look at it this way. He's laid up in bed today, every day for the past six years, and in all probability every day he's got left to live. For various reasons he appears to be estranged from his surviving family members, and after my conversation with Mr. Mowbray I'm kind of doubting he has lots of bosom pals stopping by for chats over tea and scones. In that position I'd be willing to speak to anyone who'd fucking listen to me."

"Even the. . ." She raised an eyebrow. "Police?"

Another shrug. "You know I used to be a policeman. I remember telling you."

"The emphasis there on 'used to be'."

"Viewing time in such a linear manner is very narrow minded."

She didn't bother to respond to that. "I can think of plenty of reasons why he'd refuse to see us. Pride for starters. And from what you've said he's never had much respect for piddling little inconveniences – like policemen and laws."

"I don't intend to take no for an answer."

"We'll see."

More time passed. It began to seem like they'd been forgotten, or were being ignored deliberately until they eventually got bored and went away. Finally the intercom crackled and Gordon Mowbray's voice was speaking to them again.

"Lord Rose has decided he can spare fifteen minutes. Please follow the road up to the main entrance. They'll be someone to meet you there." The intercom fell silent again and the gate started to slide open.

"Seems like you might just be useful for something after all."

Emil smiled wryly. "Thanks."

* * *

Corvus Rein jumped back with a strangled yelp as the body flopped over onto its back. _Jesus Fucking Christ! _There was a loud clatter as he inadvertently backed into a dustbin, knocking it over and spilling its contents across the floor of the alleyway. 

"Sampson, get your ass down here. Sharpish." Corvus's voice was ragged at the edges as he called back over his shoulder.

"Yeah, yeah. Keep your hair on." Chuckling at his own joke, the man called Sampson strolled leisurely down the alley to his colleague's side. "What's the big. . ." His voice choked off abruptly as he caught a glimpse of what was lying a couple of metres in front of Corvus's feet. "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck."

Sampson turned away, his expression ghastly, leaning against the alley wall. His mouth worked like that of a goldfish, sucking in gasps of air. Then he dry retched once, and a second time, before finally vomiting his lunch out, splattering his own mirror polished shoes. 

"You fucking bastard Corvus. You could have bloody warned me." Unable to stop himself he glanced back at it again. "Fucking hell."

They had, it appeared, managed to find one of them before the authorities.

Since the jumper they'd been combing the area in teams of two, looking for 'anything suspicious'. Exactly what had been left rather vague, but since the 'first two' had constituted a man who had gouged out his own eyeballs, then bitten off his tongue, followed by a suicide who'd thrown himself off the top of a six story building into a busy street, Corvus had developed a pretty good idea on his own.

Just over two hours ago there had been a third 'incident'.

Corvus hadn't seen this one – much to his unvoiced relief. A businessman had stepped deliberately out in front of one of London's traditional bright red double-decker buses. According to witnesses he too had been ranting about this 'Kindly One'. Another connecting thread.

And now, from the look of things they had a fourth.

This one had apparently found himself a discarded milk-bottle. The results had not been pretty. That was an understatement. 

There was blood everywhere, pools and puddles of it, slowly congealing and seeping into the porous tarmac. So much of it that Corvus guessed the man must have bled to death. The stench of that blood, sickly sweet, mingled nauseatingly with the smell of cooking food from the café they were standing behind, and he could feel his stomach roiling. Behind him Sampson retched again.

How many times the man had stabbed himself with shards of broken glass, Corvus couldn't begin to guess. From the brief look he'd gotten up close he didn't want to know.

Best inform Claudia. The blood wasn't even cold. His hand shook as he reached for his phone.

A smarter or more imaginative man than Corvus might have found himself wondering at this juncture. The first 'victim' had been a known drug dealer. The second – the jumper – had a conviction for assault and battery against his first wife. The third, who'd come into close contact with the bus was less obvious – however the pension company he worked for was currently being investigated by the fraud squad. Three people it seemed with less than stellar pasts.

What he might have wondered about was the construction of the search teams. He might have noticed that every single one of them had a criminal background, and to some degree – whether liberally soaked or merely slightly spattered – had blood on their hands. He might have noticed the similarities between the searchers and those that had so far died.

Since Corvus wasn't a man for deep thought and philosophising however, such thoughts never crossed his mind.

As Claudia answered he quickly summarised the situation, trying to keep his voice calm.

"Where are you?" Cold and matter of fact.

"Er. . ." His mind had gone blank. No matter how hard he tried he couldn't recall the information he wanted. In an alley behind a café was not likely to be greeted as an acceptable answer, and Claudia wasn't known for patience over other peoples' incompetence.

"Sampson," he hissed over his shoulder, covering up the phone's mouthpiece. But there was no sign of his supposed partner, who'd apparently retreated out of the alley, unable to take it anymore. _Fucking bastard. Leaving me in the lurch like this. You and I are going to have words. . ._

"Rein? I asked where you were."

"Er, sorry about that. The connection blurred out for a moment this end." He groped around for the information he wanted, and suddenly, almost miraculously it was there. "We're in an alley off Brennan Street, at the back of Rocco's Café."

"I'll be there in three minutes. Keep the scene secure." Then the phone went dead.

"Sampson, get your ass back down here before I come and hand it to you in a sling!"

There was no response. In fact it was eerily quiet, even the traffic noise momentarily fading. "I swear it Sampson. I'm going to give you the beating of your miserable life." Corvus began muttering to himself – imprecations aimed at his supposed partner. He started towards the alley's exit before remembering Claudia's instructions and halting, hovering frustratedly.

After several seconds he got the strong sense he was being watched. The hairs on the back of his neck lifted and he was abruptly very aware of the sound of his own breathing. Then, from directly behind him, came the sound of footsteps – light and stealthy. Corvus span, freeing the 9mm pistol he carried from his shoulder holster.

"I saw you before. From my place of Sanctuary."

At first he thought the person standing in front of him was just a girl. A second closer look and he realised it was a small, delicate looking Asian woman. A particularly attractive one at that.

Corvus liked Asian women. It was a taste he'd developed from a stint working as hired muscle in a Bangkok nightclub. Right now though – despite his predilections – the last thing in the world he was feeling was lust.

For some reason he was suddenly absolutely terrified. As he watched her pick her way fastidiously through the pools of blood – seemingly entirely oblivious to the gory wreck of a corpse – he took a couple of involuntary steps backwards.

Obscurely he found himself wishing that he'd led a better life.

"I wanted you from the moment I laid eyes on you."

Normally such a statement, from such a woman, would have had him salivating. Now his mouth was dry and he could feel the palms of his hands sweating. The gun he held trained on her trembled in his grasp. Something about that voice was unlike anything he'd ever heard. The accent was strange but that was just the start of it.

"D-did you?"

"Oh yesss." She kept on walking, slowly and steadily towards him, bearing the gun no mind. "I could taste what you were right away."

"That's – " He couldn't think of anything coherent to say and his instincts were screaming at him to run. "That's nice."

She laughed, the sound hard and cruel. Her face tilted slightly back as she looked up at his face. Light caught in eyes. They shone like twin disks of copper.

Corvus yelped – almost fell backwards over the same bin he'd knocked over earlier. "Y-You. I saw you earlier. Looking at me. In that shop. W-Who are you?"

She simply smiled – kept on advancing towards him. He could have shot her easily, right between the eyeballs. If his composure hadn't been shaken so badly that he'd forgotten he was even holding a gun.

"I can see what's inside your head, little man. Would you like me to show you what I can see?"

Something clicked inside him as his gaze touched that exsanguinated body again. "You." It came out as a hoarse rasp. "It's you who the boss is after. You did this him didn't you? And the others too."

Another alien laugh. "I showed him what he was. Showed him his ugliness. After seeing it he chose to do this to himself."

"What are you?"

She was close now, and all he could concentrate on were those glowing copper eyes, boring into him – flaying him open. He felt that if he looked hard enough he would be able to see something behind that beautifully serene Asian face. A strange perfume – sandalwood and something else – tickled at his nostrils, banishing the nauseating reek of spilled blood and cooking food far into the background, making his head spin.

"What am I?" The question seemed to amuse her. "I am me. Nothing else. The first of the three. This skin I wear confuses you? If you look a little deeper you will see exactly what I am."

"N-No!"

Corvus finally remembered the gun, lifting it to point straight at the centre of her face from a distance of less than a foot. He wasted no time with warnings. Simply pulled the trigger.

The bang resounded thunderously in the confines of the alley.

He missed.

He gaped as the bullet ricocheted of a brick wall about ten metres from where he was standing. At the instant he'd pulled the trigger her face had seemed to jump a foot to the left and he'd been aiming at empty air.

Her hand came up and grabbed hold of his wrist. Its grip was like iron – impossible strength for the small frame of the person behind it. In fact it was more than just strong. It paralysed him completely, leaving him unable to do anything except breathe and stand there, helpless.

Finally he saw what lurked behind her face, blazing bright. His bladder gave up, hot urine splattering down the insides of his legs.

Rising on tiptoes she kissed him on the lips.

The kiss burnt, like fire and ice and acid all rolled into one. It ate its way inside him, boring slowly into his innermost core. If he could have screamed he would have until his vocal chords gave out.

"Now see what you really are, Corvus Rein. See the truth."

Instantaneously all the doors inside his head flew open simultaneously. All the defence mechanisms that every person has in order to keep themselves somewhere approaching sane collapsed and disintegrated. Every buried memory flooded back as the dams that once held them in check were gone. Every secret shame and regret and scrap of guilt hit home at once.

As he had been promised he now saw himself completely nakedly for what he was.

The paralysis left him and he collapsed in a heap on the alley floor, his muscles unable to support him. He didn't even hear himself screaming.

Memories replayed themselves and as far as he was concerned he was no longer in a bloodstained alleyway somewhere in South London. He was thousands of miles away and years distant in time.

He was raiding the home of a drug dealer by the name of Tyrell Riggins. Tyrell managed to seriously piss Corvus's current employer off. What he'd actually done Corvus hadn't cared. He'd just had his orders. Take the bastard out. Simple as that. The fact that Tyrell's girlfriend and three year old son had been home at the time had been unfortunate, but to Corvus's way of thinking, just one of those things. 

It played out exactly as it had seven years ago, with one small difference. This time, as he and his partner, Black Dog, blasted through the front door with shotguns, he could feel the family's fear and panic as if it was his own. He advanced remorselessly through the apartment, and saw through two pairs of eyes as he came upon Tyrell, experiencing his terror and then his agonising pain as he shot him in the gut. He saw through his own and Tyrell's, and then the girlfriend's and the child's eyes as the she blundered in on the execution, the child cradled in her arms. Her screams – her shock and grief and fear – were his own, and he died as she did in a shocking blaze of redness as Black Dog shot her in the head.

Horrendous agony from his gut. More pain than he could bear. Blinding rage and horror. Incomprehension and fear as two horrific, blood drenched monsters loomed over him. Sound distorting and overlapping in a hideous nightmare cacophony. He screamed inside his head, and outside, but the images didn't stop.

That was just the start. Every sin or fragment of pain he had inflicted – everything that inhabited the dingy depths of his being – was dredged up and held before his mind's eye, displayed in all its stripped down ugliness.

Through the madness he was dimly aware of a distant observer. Someone who wore the skin of a woman, yet inside was a bright and blazing thing that made him flinch away. A thing of metal with brass eagle wings and raking talons and blazing copper eyes in a face of merciless cruelty and rage.

He could feel it as she fed on him. Drank his guilt – devoured his suffering. She would gladly consume him whole.

"Kindly One. Please Kindly One I'm sorry. Sorry for what I am. Sorry for what I have done." Tears streamed down his cheeks. "Please, how can I atone? How can I earn your forgiveness?" He was babbling like a terrified child, his sanity shattered by the onslaught of images that still kept on their remorseless bombardment.

Abruptly something seemed to go wrong. The image of the shining, eagle-winged woman with those blazing copper eyes faded and dwindled away to nothing, leaving him alone in his head. Corvus shrieked. Even though she was cruel she was better than being left alone within himself. "Kindly One! Oh, please Kindly One. Come back!"

. . .

. . .

In the real world Megaera hissed, drawing in a sharp breath. A line of fire burned across her cheek. Attention distracted from the wretch grovelling before her, her appetite almost satiated in any case, she glanced down, seeing blood drip onto the tarmac. Her own blood, or rather, that of her host. It glistened like dark red jewels.

Her hand touched the burning line on her face, fingers coming away red.

Something had cut her. This wouldn't have happened _before_. Then nobody would have dared to disturb her. But this place was strange and disconcerting, and this flesh uncomfortable weak.

Her gaze fixed upon the person who had interrupted her.

That person was calmly in the process of transferring a short-bladed knife – bloody edged – into a clear plastic bag. Once that was safely accomplished, she slipped it into her pocket.

Their eyes met.

Something remarkable here. This person showed no fear. 

That was unheard of. In fact Megaera could get no sense of this person whatsoever. She was blank, completely devoid of anything. . . well, anything that was human. Looking into this woman's clear blue eyes, she might as well have been looking into a mirror. 

Her body recognised her. "You. Claudia Dumane. The. . grinning devil's pet." The words retrieved from her host's head, and without meaning to her.

There was no reply. Claudia just kept on looking at her, devoid of emotion.

Megaera experienced something she had never felt before and couldn't put a name to. "The knife. Give it to me." She extended her hand, voice filled with authority and anger. Filled with fury.

"No."

Disobedience was another unfamiliar experience. "Then I will take it from you."

"No."

Anger blazing now, she reached out and grabbed hold of Claudia's wrist – unleashed her power. She threw open the doors in the woman's mind. . . only to find them already standing ajar. Empty, echoing corridors. There was nothing there for to grasp hold of and nothing she could use. Everything was smooth and slippery as glass.

Claudia pulled her wrist free, the effort negligible. Megaera recoiled in shock.

"What are you?" Unconsciously echoing Corvus's earlier question.

Again Claudia didn't respond, instead turning away and walking rapidly towards the alley's exit. Megaera was simply too nonplussed to react. This was beyond her experience. All she did was watch as the woman dwindled into the distance.

Unnoticed at her feet, sobbing quietly to himself, Corvus lifted the barrel of his pistol to his mouth and swallowed it.

* * *

The kitchen door stood open, letting out coils of steam. It appeared that the evening meal was being prepared.

Lara darted through it in a half crouch, ducking behind a counter for cover. ". . . do you think that's right eh? Talking about someone behind their back like that? And then she has the temerity to complain I was being over-sensitive about it. . ." From the way the conversation went on unabated it seemed that no one had noticed her entrance.

She looked around. The place was cavernous. You could prepare an eight-course banquet for a couple of hundred people and still have room left over. Everything was relatively modern and sterile, mirror finished metal abounding, and the overall impression was of busy restaurant rather than stately home. No aga's here.

"Yeah."The second party to the conversation sounded distinctly unenthusiastic. Lara got the impression he'd tuned completely out of what the first person was saying and was filling in the blanks by rote.

"That was what I thought exactly. Someone needs to her down a peg or two, mark my words. . ."

Lara came to the conclusion that the second person was very wise and promptly followed his example. On a modern gas stove behind her a pot bubbled. Rather large for one person who probably no longer had much of an appetite. From the look of it there must be quite a number of staff to feed.

Still moving in a half crouch, she headed as quickly and quietly as she could towards the exit before anyone decided to check on the pot. No one even looked round as the door clicked shut behind her.

In the corridor beyond she straightened. The key to moving through any working building in broad daylight was not to try to be stealthy. Whether you liked it or not it was near certain that somebody would see you, especially if – like Lara – you only had the most basic knowledge of the terrain. Anyone attempting to sneak, or looking lost or uncertain, would attract attention from everyone who laid eyes on them. On the other hand, as long as you maintained an aura of confidence and the attitude that you absolutely, positively had every right to be where you were most people wouldn't look at you twice.

Thanks largely to her upbringing Lara could do 'I own the place' and 'what the hell are you looking at you oik?' rather well when the need arose. Although the first person she strode imperiously past – a youngish looking man in whites that suggested he was a nurse – did most definitely look at her twice, it had nothing to do with him finding her presence suspicious. . .

Inside, Tarr House seemed even larger than from the outside, maze-like in its vastness. On her previous visits she'd never had much chance to explore, save for a guided ego-trip round Avery Rose's collection. This could, she reflected slightly despairingly after turning into yet another elegantly appointed corridor very similar to the one before it, take hours.

Logic, she decided, dictated that he would have installed himself in the master bedroom. That would be on the top floor. _Nothing like blind confidence_. _So much better than uncertainty and indecision_.

Lara passed several more people but no one challenged her presence. After a couple of minutes she located a flight of stairs.

The atmosphere of the top floor was very different – like she had stepped into some kind of forbidden zone. The quiet and stillness were slightly unnerving, and she found herself unconsciously holding her breath and trying to silence her footfalls.

Suddenly there were footsteps coming towards her.

Instinctively she went for the nearest door. The ornate brass handle turned easily enough, but the door wouldn't budge. Locked. Well that was the decision made for her. She forced herself to look calm and composed, like she knew where she was going and wasn't doing anything wrong_. Who knows, it might even work up here too._

That illusion lasted all of five seconds.

Someone rounded a corner in front of her. "Excuse me, who are you? You shouldn't be wandering around up here on your own." The speaker was another person dressed in a white nurse's uniform. A woman this time. She looked like the sort of individual who was used to manhandling difficult mental patients – violently if necessary.

"I'm here to see Lord Rose. He's expecting me." Calm authority, almost contemptuous, as if she couldn't believe that anyone would dare to question her.

"Oh. You one of the policemen?" She looked Lara up and down, and before she could say anything continued. "No. Police don't dress like you, even when they're plainclothes. And Mowbray wouldn't let you wander around up here unattended." She bustled forward, fixing Lara with a hard glare. "I think I'll let security know about you. In the meantime you can start by telling me who the hell you are and what you think you're doing here."

Lara considered this and gave the only answer she thought would be acceptable. She punched the woman, hard and fast on the jaw.

The woman collapsed like a sack of bricks, Lara letting out a stifled 'ooph' as she caught her just before she crashed to the floor. The limp weight of a dead or unconscious person was always heavier than it appeared, and this woman could be most politely described as 'sturdy' to begin with.

_What to do with her?_ A blow like that probably wouldn't put her out for more than a minute or two at best.

Gritting her teeth, Lara began to drag the woman towards another of the nearby doors. This one was locked too. She tried a second. No luck there either. Anxiety began to set in. Dragging an unconscious body around was not a quiet activity and every passing second increased the chance of someone coming along to see what was going on. Not to mention that the muscles in her arms were starting to burn.

Third time proved to be the charm. She hauled the woman into what appeared to be a disused bedroom and pulled the door closed behind her.

It was several minutes before Lara emerged again. When she did she was wearing the other woman's uniform.

In a number of respects it was a less than perfect fit. First off it was too baggy, though that wasn't really the problem. No the problem was more that the woman she'd taken it from was around six inches shorter than herself – it showed a _lot_ more leg than it was supposed to.

_Maybe I can claim I'm supposed to be a strip-a-gram_, she thought wryly.

Concealing her stolen pistol had proved a little problematic too. Finally she'd made do with strapping it to her thigh. There was nothing she could do about her pack though, and she didn't dare leave it – and more especially its contents – lying around. She just hoped that no one thought it odd enough to comment on.

In the end finding Avery Rose turned out a lot easier than she'd feared. Turning the corner the nurse had rounded there was another corridor, and at the end of that another turn. This ended in a pair of ornately gilded doors thirty or so feet in front of her. Pretty obviously what she was looking for.

The security guard – lolling against a wall and looking profoundly bored – only reinforced this.

Lara managed to keep outwardly calm, not breaking stride, her expression not so much as flickering. He was looking at her, apparently with interest, but the expected challenge didn't come right away.

She forced herself not to stare too closely – although she couldn't help but notice the slight bulge of a shoulder holster beneath his jacket. _Typical Avery. No respect for the law_.

His eyes remained on her every step of the way, but after a couple of seconds she realised he was not really seeing her. He was looking at her legs, and the way her uniform fitted over her breasts – ogling her, but crucially not looking at her in the way a person would a potential security threat. Internally some of the tension that had built up bled away.

Avery Rose never had been an easy man to work for, and staff turnover had always been extremely high. Something that appeared to be working in her favour now – a face you didn't recognise wasn't anything unusual.

As she stepped past him she offered him a fractional smile and caught a fleeting glimpse of his broad answering grin. Someone else, she suspected, who would be looking for new employment very shortly now.

Lara pushed open the door and stepped through it.

* * *

"Did you see that?" Emil slowed almost to a stop as he drove along the long, winding gravel driveway leading to the front of Tarr House.

"I assume you're referring to those two men armed with sub-machine guns."

"Who the hell else?" He braked, pulling the Lexus to a halt. A moment later he was getting out, .45 pistol in hand.

Joanna quickly joined him. "This is a _good_ idea is it?"

A glance back at her. "You'd prefer we just ignore it? You think Avery Rose usually has armed men running around the grounds of his house?"

"I never said that." She'd pulled her own weapon. Custom made by a small American company he'd learned, taking the .50 calibre magnum cartridges of a Desert Eagle but with an extended magazine, reduced kick and an optical sight. "But we may be blowing our chance to speak to Rose."

"We're policemen, remember?" A sardonic smile. "We see something suspicious then we're supposed to investigate it, right? Just keeping in role."

That said, he started moving forwards, dropping into a crouch so as to stay in the cover provided by the landscaped undulations of the ground. Joanna followed.

"You're thinking these are people had something to do with yesterday's robbery, right?" She asked several minutes later as they stopped abruptly, coming in sight of the kitchen entrance at the rear of the house. They hadn't managed to catch any further glimpses of the mysterious gunmen.

Emil nodded. "Hell of a coincidence if they're not, don't you think?" Although, he had to admit, there had been a lot of coincidences just lately. "Looks like they didn't find what they were looking for yesterday." If there was a hint of smugness in his voice he thought it was justified.

"Umph." Joanna's response suggested that while he could jump to all the conclusions he liked, she wasn't going to do likewise.

The kitchen doorway was standing open. From inside there came the sound of someone crying out. This was followed a second or so later by a loud crash of clattering pots and pans. They exchanged a look, and Emil took a deep breath, swallowing the anxiety that welled up inside him. "Okay, let's move."

* * *

"Ah, Nurse Caruthers. . . That was quick."

Lara jolted. The voice was blurred – contained a rasping, distorted quality that suggested it was an effort for this person to speak at all. Certainly there was nothing in it that suggested the Avery Rose that she had known. Nothing even the slightest bit familiar.

The room she'd stepped into was dark, heavy blinds closed across the windows so that not a scrap of sunlight was able to penetrate. The only illumination came from a number of VDU screens arranged around the massive bed that dominated the place like the sarcophagus of an ancient, mummified pharaoh.

She felt a strange apprehension, as though, in entering here, she'd violated the lair of some dark and terrible guardian beast. There was heaviness about the atmosphere that she'd felt from the moment she'd stepped across the threshold, and it grew inexorably with each careful forward step.

A gasp of surprise was quickly choked off as her eyes touched the figure that lay atop that huge bed. The earlier comparison with a mummified pharaoh suddenly seemed all too close to home. Lara had expected deterioration to have taken place over the past six years. She just hadn't expected it to be quite this bad.

"Nurse Caruthers?" It was difficult to read that distorted voice, but Lara thought she detected a trace of confusion. "No. . . not Nurse Caruthers. Too tall. . . too thin. Who is it? . . Who are you?"

Lara didn't answer right away, instead continuing her slow advance. 

Before the stroke Avery Rose had been a big man, hale and well fed with a millionaire's tan. He'd looked and sounded every inch the part: booming voice, broad avuncular smile that had never quite concealed the gleam of reptilian greed in his eyes; clothes that had been a touch too loud; a general air of smug health and well being. Now, in the artificial glow of the monitors, he looked grey and withered.

It could have been a lot worse, she knew. Without the money to afford absolutely the best care available, the tendons in his legs might have contracted from disuse, drawing him into a permanent foetal position. He might have developed deep, weeping bedsores, his musculature atrophying around him. Even so, she guessed he weighed only half of what he had the last time she'd seen him, verging upon the gaunt with his pasty skin hanging from his frame in loose dewlaps. Half of his face had sagged as he'd lost the ability to control the muscles beneath it, and his eyes wandered aimlessly, not able to properly focus on her despite the fact that she was now only a couple of metres away from him.

He was fifty-five years old. He looked about ninety.

"Answer me!" Definite petulance, like a spoilt child not being allowed his own way. The first thing about him that was vaguely familiar.

Lara's gaze settled on the remote keypad that lay beneath Avery Rose's thin right hand. A couple of quick paces forward and she snatched it away from his grasp, his fingers closing feebly and far, far too late around empty air.

"Hello Avery. Long time no see. I'd say you were looking well. . . But we wouldn't want to start this conversation with a lie, would we?"

There was a pregnant pause. The soft whisper of the air conditioning combined with the hum of all the equipment arrayed around the bed.

"Lara." The word was breathed, barely audible. "Lara Croft. Strange. I don't. . . feel particularly surprised."

"Is that so Avery? Me? Frankly I'm astonished to be here." Despite his professed lack of surprise, she noted that the sound of his breathing had altered, becoming harsher and more ragged.

"So, Lara. Is this just a. . . social call. Dropping in on an. . . old friend? Or have you come to do what you should have done six years ago?"

"Kill you, you mean? No, my thoughts on that subject remain exactly the same as they did before. I continue to wish you a very long life."

A rasping, coughing sound that for a moment made her think he was choking. Then she realised, a touch nonplussed, that he was laughing. 

"What if I were to tell you I no longer. . . wanted to die Lara? Would that change anything?"

She shrugged. "No. I'd just say good luck to you. Maybe you're finally evolving into something close to a human being."

Another rasping, coughing laugh. "You're looking well Lara. Every bit as. . . lovely as I remember. That uniform is something new though. . . Changed career since we last met. . . have you?"

Lara snorted. "I think not."

"I do hope Nurse Caruthers is. . . okay. Not the gentlest of bedside manners, but very. . . competent. I've become quite attached to her."

"I'm sure Nurse Caruthers will be absolutely fine."

"Good, good. I'll assume this isn't a. . . social call after all. Otherwise you'd have stopped by. . . years ago."

Lara took a look at the keypad she'd swiped. At first glance it was incomprehensible, the array of buttons dizzying. "That's right Avery. No offence, but you were a bore even before your stroke. I don't imagine lying here in bed for the past six years has improved matters greatly, hmm?" It was, she'd found, always better to talk to Avery Rose if you'd managed to get him angry at the outset. That way he became incautious and let things slip he otherwise wouldn't. "Now what does this yellow button here do?"

"Don't. . . touch that!" His hand grasped feebly towards her.

"Oops, too late." One of the VDU screens went abruptly blank.

Suddenly, again to her surprise, he started laughing – or making that ghastly sound that she took to be laughter in any case.

"I see what you're trying to do. . . Lara." A coughing fit, quickly controlled. "It isn't going to work. . . this time. I've become a much more. . . reflective man, these past years. Not that I've really had much. . . choice."

"Yes, quite. Still, keeps you out of mischief eh?"

"You don't have. . . much time, Lara. I'd get to the point."

She raised an eyebrow. "What makes you think I don't have much time Avery, dear? There's just me and you. No one knows I'm here. No interruptions. I'm sure there's plenty of time for us to have lots of fun together." Her voice took on an almost seductive note.

He chuckled again. Become quite the comedian since last she'd seen him, Lara reflected. In all honesty it wasn't a vast improvement.

"You don't know about the. . . police then Lara? They showed up at the. . . gates a few minutes ago. I'd guess that Mr. Mowbray. . . That's my head of security. . . will be showing them up any time now."

_Bugger._ She remembered Nurse Caruthers' words, so it wasn't just a lie to get rid of her. "Why would the police turn up here, right now?" She knew exactly why, though. _Damn_. _Have to hurry this up_.

"Much the same reason as. . . yourself I'd imagine. Perhaps you'd. . . like to take a look at that. . . screen there." Another feeble gesture. "Second row down. . . on left."

For the first time Lara paid close attention to those banks of screens. There were twelve in total, arranged in two lots of six. Flat LCD units were attached to frames oddly reminiscent of a hi-tech child's mobile, capable of being swung and manoeuvred into whatever arrangement that Avery Rose so chose. 

She peered at the one he'd indicated. It displayed an Internet browser containing an Annova news feed. Other screens held the latest minute by minute stock market updates, various news programs – CNN, Sky News, BBC 24 – and more internet connections, though at the moment all sound was turned off. One screen that caught her eye simply displayed an aquarium filled with exotically bright tropical fish. In combination the effect was slightly surreal – a strange light show.

The item he meant leapt out at her instantly. Armed robbery, involving explosives in Soho. Police investigating. She didn't need to read the rest of it.

"Curious isn't it," Avery Rose was saying. "I feel so much more in touch and. . . attuned to the world. . . than I did before. Despite the fact that these. . . screens have become almost my sole access point into real life. I watch. . . That's what I do. I lie here and watch. . . and soak it all up. Information. . . more precious than gold. I wish I had realised that fact before. . ." That reptilian chuckle again. "Since my. . . unfortunate accident, when all I have done is lie here and watch information. . . my fortune has more than quadrupled. I feel almost like. . . a god Lara, observing everything that goes on. . . but aloof from it all. Omniscient. . . yet powerless at the same time. Quite the. . . paradox."

"Yes, well. We all need our little delusions don't we?" For some reason his words disturbed her. She found that she didn't like this particular incarnation of Avery Rose one bit. Despite his extremely obvious disabilities he struck her as being much more dangerous than the blustering bully of six years ago. "Shall I get to the point?"

"Oh do. . . Please do."

"Let's think back six years, shall we Avery? I want to know why you hired Du Pont to recover that Erinyes figurine."

"Ah yes, Du Pont. Useful guy. . . If a little dangerous to keep. . . cluttering up the house. Whatever happened to Du Pont?"

"Du Pont's dead." Her tone was flat. She saw right away that he'd already known that and was simply probing for a reaction.

"Pity. He was a friend of yours. . . wasn't he Lara? Or a least a close peer. But then people have a habit. . . of dying around you. Don't they?"

She held herself from rising to that. It was an effort, even though the provocation was transparent. "Now, back to the Erinyes figurine please Avery?"

A noise that might have been a sigh. "Why did I want anything. . . back then Lara? Because I had heard about it and. . . wanted to possess it. Because I was. . . greedy. Does that satisfy?"

So it was going to be like this then, was it? Answering her questions apparently sincerely, but deliberately avoiding telling her what she really wanted to know. Lara sucked in a breath between her teeth. There wasn't time for these sort of games. "What I want to know is what was special about it? Why did it attract your attention?"

A pause.

"You mean to say. . . you don't know? Did David never tell you. . . Lara?"

Lara folded her arms across her chest. Although there was nothing to indicate it in his voice she knew he was amused. Lara Croft coming to him in ignorance and asking for help. Well so be it. If she had to suffer his amusement for an answer then it was a small price to pay. She could swallow her pride. "Would I be here asking you this if I knew?"

"I. . . suppose not." His eyes glittered like dark gemstones. "David used you even more badly than. . . I had thought."

"And you killed him." She quickly bit back the swell of fury, reminding herself forcibly what she was here for. What was past was past and couldn't be changed.

And I. . . killed him. Or had him killed. . . I guess it makes no difference. Do you. . . hate me for that Lara?"

She stared at him. A shell of the person she remembered – almost pitiful. Strangely his very helplessness robbed her of all power over him though. _What use is a gun against someone who doesn't care whether or not you use it on him?_ The short answer was yes, she hated him. Six years suddenly seemed a very short space of time. "What I feel about you scarcely matters."

"How. . . magnanimous."

"The subject is the Erinyes figurine Avery."

"You'd have thought someone in the. . . grave robbing business for so long. . . would have learned more patience." An expression that was probably meant to be a smile. "But yes, for you Lara. . . because I like you. . . I'll get to the point. Wouldn't you want to possess a part of a deity. . ? A piece of immortality."

"The immortal remains of one the Erinyes," Lara echoed from old memories.

Avery Rose blinked. "Just so. . . In my hubris I. . . wished to possess all three."

"Du Pont's words. I never quite understood what they meant. I had more pressing concerns at the time, and afterwards. . ." She felt herself gritting her teeth. "Well, let's just say I never got round to pursuing the matter like I probably should."

"What do you think they meant Lara. . ? I had thought you to be. . . an astute woman. The figurines were supposed to contain relics. . . fragments of hair, blood, bone. . . You know what they did with the remains of Christian saints. . . I am sure."

"But we are hardly talking about the remains of a Christian saint here. Are we Avery?" Lara glanced quickly over her shoulder at the door. She could feel the seconds ticking by, and it seemed like she had been in here an awfully long time already. Perhaps he had been lying about the police after all.

He read the meaning of her glance. "Yes. . . They are dawdling rather. . . aren't they. I wonder what could be. . . keeping them? And no. . . we are hardly talking about a Christian saint."

Her gaze fixed upon him again. She'd detected something different in the blurred, rasping note of his voice, but she couldn't read what it was exactly in his sagging face.

"The story was there was a sorcerer. . . A sorcerer who attracted the three sisters'. . . fury. But I won't bore you with it. . . It's not as if we. . . have the time. David thought that the remains would cure him. . . Did you know that Lara?" A bout of coughing that was quickly suppressed. "He thought he could use the. . . divinity the figurines contained. . . to rid himself of the ailments that. . . ended his. . . rock-climbing days."

"And what on earth would you know about that." There was a snap to her voice, which Lara suppressed quickly. Reflexively she pulled the gun from the band around her thigh and began to inspect it. It was a sort of habit. She knew that most people tended to find it intimidating.

"You have to know. . . that holds no fear for me."

"Really Avery? You're awfully eager to point that out. But you know what I've found? No one welcomes death when it doesn't come on their own terms. And you've already told me that you've rebuilt yourself a life."

"Even so." He made that gargling chuckling sound again. "You always did have a temper. . . Attractive, in a woman."

She simply fixed him with her gaze.

"You have to know it's the truth. . . Lara. David used you. I only wanted it. . . because of greed. And at least I had the decency to. . . pay Du Pont. Not only did David get the. . . same service for free. He also got a damn good lay. . . into the bargain."

_Don't let yourself get angry._ Words. Only words. 

Putting the pistol away again, she unbuckled her pack and lifted out the figurine it contained. As she touched it a shiver passed up the length of her arm. There was a dent she noted, where a shotgun pellet had stuck it. And a tiny crack. "So when did you get hold of this one Avery? Who is it? Alecto? Tisiphone?"

"Alecto." Again that unfathomable note in his voice. His breath was coming noticeably faster and louder than before. "So it was you who. . . stole it then. I. . . to be honest I'm surprised."

"Stole it?" She held it up so it caught the artificial light from the screens surrounding Avery Rose's bed. It looked unearthly and it felt. . . Lara frowned. Amused? "Well technically that's accurate I suppose. However, I only stole it from the thieves who took it from your safety deposit box in the first place. Not because I particularly wanted it. Someone appears to be collecting these things."

"So what. . ? I ceased to have any interest in. . . collecting things six years ago. Why should it be of any. . . interest to me?"

Lying, and absolutely transparently. Lara frowned. Something about the situation was definitely shaking his composure. Almost unconsciously she placed the figurine of Alecto down on the bed beside him.

"Get that fucking thing away from me!" The words were very nearly shrieked, sending a jolt up Lara's spine. Avery Rose appeared to be trying – largely unsuccessfully – to crawl to the other side of the bed, as far from the figurine as he could manage. He was, she realised, absolutely terrified of it.

She picked it up again. "Something about her scare you, Avery dear?"

The eye on the fully mobile left side of his face seemed to be trying to bug out of his head. "You. . . idiot! You absolute idiot."

If he didn't calm down, she thought, he was likely to bring on another stroke. She told him as much.

Eventually he appeared to steady himself somewhat.

"So, care to tell me what's got you so worried Avery? I'll take her away from you all the quicker." Despite the composure of her voice she felt a tiny shiver of her own fear. One thing about Avery Rose: he didn't scare easily – a combination of lack of imagination and the belief that the world was arranged for his benefit.

There was hate in his eyes now, to go along with the fear. "Last time I was. . . near her she left me in this state of. . . living death. I do not care to risk. . . what she would do. . . a second time."

"She did this to you. Yes, right."

"Scoff all you like Lara. . . But you should. . . take a look at yourself first. You've hardly led a blameless life. . . have you? How many men have you killed. . ? And how many of those were. . . truly necessary? I'd say you were a prime target. . . just like I was."

She found herself staring at the figurine's age-scarred, verdegrissed face. "You're saying that this is alive somehow? That Alecto herself resides within it? Pardon me if I sound sceptical."

Avery started coughing again. "A part of her. . . at least. Enough that she remembers what she. . . once was. Enough that she could do this. . . to me. Enough that I want nothing to do. . . with her, or any of them, ever again. If someone wants to collect these things. . . then let him. He's going to be in for one hell of an. . . unpleasant surprise when he gets them." A humourless laugh that degenerated into another bout of coughing.

"Sorry, I don't really feel inclined to do that." _Was he telling the truth?_ The fear, she decided, was genuine enough. And he seemed to believe his own words, but. . . _Are you in there, Alecto?_

No answer of course. She felt stupid, addressing an inanimate object, even if it was only inside her head. Nevertheless, she also felt a fraction uncomfortable just holding it like this, so stowed it in her pack once again. Letting his words get to her, no doubt, but it was a relief to have the thing out of her hands.

Her relief was echoed tenfold in Avery Rose's face. "Sorry to hear that. . . Lara. You should let it go. . . Take that thing away from me and. . . throw it in the sea."

This was getting annoying. And she wasn't learning what she wanted. "Okay then Avery, what do you know about somebody known as the 'One-Legged Man'?"

"A pirate captain right. . ? Has an eye patch and. . . a parrot on his shoulder. Is that the man you. . . mean."

"Very funny Avery. You should do stand-up. Or lay down at least." Inwardly she cursed herself. That was just the mercenaries' name for him. He was hardly likely to know it. She tried again. "Somebody who knew that you had the figurine though. Somebody who knew that you had a safety deposit box."

"You're not taking me seriously, are you Lara. . ? Get rid of that thing. . . I'd hate to see the same thing happen to you as happened to. . . David."

A surge of anger. "Avery, if you're going to lie try not to contradict yourself over the course of a single conversation. Though I guess short-term memory problems are a part of your condition, aren't they? If you recall you've already admitted having him killed."

"But did I. . .? I sometimes wonder about that Lara. My orders were only to take the other. . . Megaera. . . from him, by whatever means. . . I never specified his death. What if it wasn't my men Lara. . . What if?"

"This is getting tedious Avery. Unless a foot high figurine developed a sudden knack with a submachine-gun I think we can safely say the blame is yours." 

"So there was nothing. . . unusual about his death then," Avery persisted, "Nothing. . . at all?"

She ignored him. "Where did you find out about the figurines Avery? It's pretty obvious you knew more about them than either David or I. Where did you get our dear Alecto here from?"

"What I think Lara. . . is that if one of them would do this to me. . . for merely trying to possess her, then another would surely do much. . . much more to David. . . for what he intended."

Lara gritted her teeth. "What I think Avery, is that you're clearly deluded. Lying around with nothing to do all these years has affected your mental state. Only to be expected I suppose, but I think that continuing this conversation is a waste of. . ."

Suddenly, behind her, she caught the soft sound of the door handle turning.

"Looks like those policemen. . . I told you about have finally managed to find. . . their way up here." Avery Rose gave a rasping laugh, but cut himself off as he realised that Lara was already gone from his field of vision. 

The door swung open.

"Remember what I told you. . . about that figurine."

* * *

Emil flung himself flat behind a row of kitchen units.

Just in time. A burst of gunfire shredded the air where he'd been standing less than a second earlier. Bullets pinged off the stove behind him and splintered wall tiles. A couple of them hit the extremely large saucepan bubbling away on the hob.

In the corner of his vision he saw Joanna pop up out of cover to return fire after the last of the departing gunmen. He didn't see the result though. Suddenly he had other things to worry about.

He rolled desperately aside as a mini tidal wave of boiling water and vegetables cascaded down from the stove above him. 

Not quite quickly enough. 

Strangled yelps of pain escaped him as several coin-sized droplets of the water splashed onto his skin. Inwardly he went through every curse he could think off.

Joanna was looking at him, expression unamused. He returned her gaze, glad that his skin colouring hid most of his embarrassment. The witty retorts he wanted to make did their usual trick and deserted him. No doubt they'd be back once he had no pressing need for them.

Grimacing, Emil cautiously looked over the top of his cover. Bullet ridden, the kitchen door finished swinging slowly shut. He pulled himself to his feet.

One of the kitchen staff was lying sprawled on the floor, groaning. A line of blood trickled from the side of his head where one of the gunmen had casually swatted him with the butt of his submachine-gun. Emil gave him a cursory glance as he stepped over him and concluded he wasn't in any immanent danger. A second individual had crawled into an alcove filled with mops and brooms, cowering back as he walked past.

Cautiously he kicked the kitchen door open, then jumped back out of range.

Silence.

_Okay_. He hesitated still, not particularly keen on getting perforated. Joanna settled things by walking past him and peering into the corridor. 

"Clear." Her voice was cool and relaxed, and if she was still feeling her injuries it didn't show. He wasn't quite sure if he should admire her or hate her.

The corridor was remarkably peaceful. There was no sign of the gunmen, and for that matter, no sound of them either. They stopped and listened. After the brief explosion of chaos in the kitchen the calm felt strange.

It didn't last. From behind a closed door up ahead there came a startled yelp followed quickly by a muffled thud. Somebody screamed.

* * *

Lomax grabbed the woman, clamping a hand across her mouth to cut off the racket, then swung her around as easily as if was manhandling a bag of shopping.

"Quiet." He showed her the gun, implying the alternatives available. She was shaking and hyperventilating in his grasp like an injured bird.

"Not a sound when I let go, clear?" He lifted his hand away from her mouth cautiously. Each rapid, gulping breath was punctuated by an odd little squeaking noise, but at least she didn't cry out again. Close enough.

"Avery Rose. Where is he?" He leaned close to try and fix her frantically darting gaze with his own. Sweat was pouring down her face in sheets and she looked like she was going to expire from fright at any second.

She looked across at the slumped form Hicks had just knocked cold, and he could tell that it was only through a great deal of effort that she held back from screaming again.

"He's not dead. That can change if you don't answer the question." Finally he managed to hold her eyes with his. She blanched.

"Q-Q-Question?"

Lomax stifled a sigh. "Where. Is. Avery. Rose. The man who owns this place? Your boss?"

"I-I-Er.. . I." She appeared to have lost the ability to string even a couple of words together.

"Okay Simon, shoot him. Maybe that'll jog this lady's memory."

"Sure thing boss." Flat and cold. He levelled his submachine-gun at the prone form.

"Upstairs!" It was almost a shriek. "T-top f-floor. M-master bedroom."

"Thank you. I don't suppose you'd care to provide directions?"

The woman's mouth worked but no sound came out.

Lomax lost patience. "Never mind. We'll find it." He released his grip on her and she slumped, shoulders wracked by violent tremors. "Look after him." He indicated the unconscious man. "I'm going to be stationing one of my men the other side of that door, d'you hear? Nod if you do. Good. It opens for any reason during the next hour then whoever comes through gets shot. No warnings. No second chances. Clear?"

More frantic nodding as she dropped to her knees beside the unconscious form, looking absolutely bewildered as to what she was supposed to do.

Lomax paid no more attention to her, signalling for them to get a move on. Langer fell into step with him.

"The black guy back there," the Australian spoke after a couple of seconds.

"What about him?"

"He's the guy who chased Hutchings off yesterday."

_It doesn't rain but it pours_. "You sure?"

"Well I suppose it could be his twin brother." Langer grimaced. "Yeah, pretty sure."

Lomax tried to ponder the implications whilst simultaneously keeping his attention on his surroundings and the matter in hand. A gnawing tension had taken root in the centre of his chest. That gun battle in the kitchen hadn't been part of the equation.

"Cops?" Hicks, jarring and mechanical.

That had been Lomax's first thought too. "No. Cops don't pack. Not unless they're part of an Armed Response Unit. And then they don't piss around with handguns." Back at Langer. "What about the woman?"

"Well, I'd shag her." A quick grin, even more quickly gone. "But I don't suppose that's what you're asking. If she was there yesterday I never saw her. Rankin?"

Rankin simply shook his head.

Rivals of the One-Legged Man, Lomax decided. Competent too, by the look of things. His thoughts raced. _Croft. Insane bloody bitch_. She and that goddamned statue had to remain their focus.

He came to a decision. "Simon, Rankin. Divert our newfound friends would you? Keep them off us. Kill them if you can, but no stupid risks. We'll meet at our transport inside half an hour. The rest of you with me."

* * *

A dragging, uneven step punctuated by a tapping sound.

Lara's mind seized upon it instantly. _The One-Legged Man._ Suddenly, to her own ears at least, her breathing sounded far too loud.

She was lying, concealed beneath the massive bulk of Avery Rose's bed. The thing must have weighed somewhere around half a ton and there was a forest of wires, servos and little wheels in the gloom above her to allow its occupant an almost infinite range of adjustment. If she didn't still have his remote, Avery Rose could probably have squashed her flat with it.

That dragging step advanced slowly across the room towards the bed, getting louder. Behind it, much quieter, were two more sets of footsteps. These sounded entirely normal.

Her pistol – the stolen SIG – was in her hand, some small comfort at least. Her fingers flexed around its grip as she strained to see the approaching figure – this unknown man who'd had such an impact on her recent life.

Finally his feet and ankles came into view. It wasn't immediately obvious from this angle which of the two was the artificial one. What she could make out though, was that both the shoes that he wore, and his trousers were very expensive and likely hand-tailored.

There was the momentary urge to shoot him. A quick and simple fix to her current range of problems. 

She suppressed it quickly. Such a move would be tantamount to suicide. Those other footsteps she'd heard, whose owners she still couldn't see, no doubt belonged to bodyguards. More than likely _armed_ bodyguards. By the time she got clear of the bed she was ninety percent certain of being a corpse.

So she lay there, completely motionless, and attempted to control her breathing.

A couple of more steps closer. It was the right leg that was the fake, she decided at length. The ankle movement wasn't quite natural. Her gaze jumped from that to the walking stick, heavy and carved with patterns she couldn't quite make out in the dim illumination. Something about it troubled her.

_What the hell is he doing here?_

Simple answer: The figurine in her backpack. Impatient to complete the set. Wanting to pick Avery Rose's brain – like her.

"Mr Rose." A very slight pause. "Oh, I'm sorry. I do beg your pardon. That's Lord Rose isn't it?" American accent. Warm and friendly. Lara got the sense he was smiling without needing to see his face.

A hesitation, filled only by the sound of Avery Rose's rasping breath and the quiet hum of the monitors. Then: "Somehow I don't think. . . you're a policeman. . . either."

* * *

"Aaah!"

Emil spun at the woman's strangled cry.

"Don't shoot. P-Please don't shoot."

He let out a deep breath and lowered the pistol. The woman was crouched on the floor next to the unconscious form of a man, cradling his head and rocking slowly back and forth. She looked numb with shock; bewildered and lost.

"The others. Do you know where they're headed?"

She just gaped at him.

Emil fumbled in his pocket for the badge he was carrying and flashed it quickly at her. "Police." There was a twinge of guilt at the lie this time. "We're here to help." He repeated his initial question, more gently this time. "Do you know where the gunmen went?"

"They were. . . They were wanting to know where Lord Rose was."

"And where's that?" It came out sounding rather more impatient than he'd intended.

Joanna shot him a sharp look before moving past him and dropping to her knees at the woman's side. "Listen, it's okay now. You're alright, understand?" She gripped the woman's hand in reassurance and held her with her gaze.

The woman managed to nod.

"Now what's your name?"

"A-Alison. You're American?"

"That's right. Over here on assignment," Joanna improvised smoothly.

"One of them – t-their leader I think – was an American too." She nodded to herself, as if this fact now made sense.

"That's interesting Alison. Thank you." It was at least something, however little. "Now, we're going to try and stop them doing whatever it is they intended, but to do that we need to know whatever you can tell us about them."

Alison nodded again, visibly regaining a measure of composure. "They wanted to know where Lord Rose was. I told them. . . Upstairs, in the master bedroom." She looked suddenly worried, as if that was that had been the wrong thing to do. "Their leader had a gun on me," she reiterated.

"You did the right thing," Joanna assured her.

Emil felt a sharp pang of impatience, which he fought back with an effort. They didn't have time for mollycoddling. "How many of them were there?"

She blinked. "Er. . . Eight or nine I think. I'm er. . . not sure."

Emil mentally subtracted at least two from that estimate. In his experience witnesses – especially stressed witnesses – always got numbers like that too high.

"Er, the leader called one of the others Simon," she added hurriedly, apparently eager now to be seen as helpful. "And one of the others. . ." She frowned, and paused, as if not quite trusting her own memory. "Well, he had this really strange voice. You know, sort of computerised and mechanical. Like that Stephen Hawking guy a bit, you know? I know this must sound pretty weird."

"No, no," Joanna hastened. She and Emil shared a look. It might indeed be useful later on, but right now they had other preoccupations.

"Where exactly is Lord Rose?" Emil asked. "If we can cut them off maybe we can stop them doing. . . whatever they came here to do."

Alison nodded quickly and told them what they wanted to know.

"We have to leave you on your own again now Alison," Joanna explained. A look of fear flashed in the other woman's eyes. "Don't worry. You'll be okay. Just stay here and keep your head down. Back-up will be on the way soon, but right now there are other lives at stake."

Alison finally gave a single, shaky nod.

"Don't worry about your friend, he should be perfectly okay."

He's not my friend. Not really." She clamped her jaw shut quickly, as if realising that telling this to the police might not be a good idea. "Don't!"

Emil's hand stopped with the door handle half-turned. He looked back at her.

"Er, their leader said he was leaving someone out there. That if anyone opened the door they'd be shot."

He and Joanna exchanged another look. _Almost in danger of starting to resemble a team here_."Standard ruse," Emil explained as he finished opening the door to reveal a deserted corridor beyond. "Something to put doubt in your mind when he doesn't have the men to spare."

They moved quickly, hurrying to try and make up the ground they'd lost. That meant they probably weren't being quite as careful as they could have when they rounded the next corner. Straight into a hail of gunfire.

* * *

"No I'm definitely not a policeman." Luke Charron smiled beneficently down at Avery Rose as one hand idly caressed the top of his walking stick. "Why? Were you expecting the police?" 

"Yes. . . Several minutes ago in fact. . . They appear to have been. . . delayed."

"This wouldn't be just a ruse to get rid of me, would it?" A note of mock hurt in Charron's carefully modulated voice. "And we haven't even been properly introduced yet."

"Who the hell. . . are you? This seems to be my day for unexpected visitors. . . I shall have to have words with. . . Mowbray."

"Ah yes, your head of security. I wouldn't be too hard on him. We found him to be admirably helpful. Now what was this about unexpected visitors? Are we not the day's first?"

(Underneath the bed Lara tensed – gripped her gun a little tighter – and waited for the words that would betray her).

For what seemed an inordinate amount of time Avery Rose just lay there, breathing raggedly, saying nothing. "I was referring to the. . . police I mentioned. According to Mowbray. . . they were on their way up about. . . twenty minutes ago."

(Lara relaxed just a fraction. Why Avery Rose had decided to keep quiet about her for the moment completely eluded her).

Luke Charron's smile flickered ever so slightly, though the dark glasses hid most of his reaction. An instant later smooth composure reasserted. "Perhaps Mr. Mowbray was mistaken. Perhaps he was referring to us. The mind can react strangely when it is placed under stress."

"And you placed. . . Mowbray's mind under stress?"

"Enough of this." Luke Charron waved it off as if it was nothing more than a distracting gnat. "You asked me who I was. I assume that means you don't recognise me? We have, on occasion done business in the past."

Again there was a long pause before Avery Rose replied. "I'm afraid. . . I no longer have the memory for faces. . . I once did."

"No. No, of course you wouldn't." Luke Charron gave a nonchalant shrug. "And we never did meet in the flesh. Anyway, my name is hardly the important thing here."

(Lara felt a sharp pang of frustration as it seemed he would remain silent. Knowing a name would have been useful).

"Call. . . me old fashioned. . . but I like to know who I'm. . . talking to." Avery Rose broke down in a coughing fit, taking several long seconds to recover. "You're the. . . man who stole Alecto from me. . . Aren't you?"

"So you know about that then."

That broken sounding chuckle, very difficult to distinguish from his coughing fits. "These screens. . . There may be very little I can. . . do for myself now. But there is also. . . very little I cannot know."

"I was referring to the fact that you knew about the artefact's significance. Not it's theft."

(To Lara, unable to see what was going on, the sound that Avery made was very similar to a snake hissing). 

"Why else would I. . . go to all the trouble of. . . obtaining it. It is hardly an aesthetic. . . prize."

It was Luke Charron's turn to chuckle. "And what good did you think it would do you, exactly?"

He gave the same answer he'd given to Lara a few minutes earlier. "Who wouldn't want to. . . possess a part of a deity?"

"Well I hope you don't mind, but I thought she was rather going to waste, stuck inside a metal box. I have rather more practical uses for her."

That hissing sound again. "Then you are a fool. . . and welcome to all that you have coming to you."

Luke Charron considered Avery Rose's prone form for a moment, bathed in the artificial glow from the LCD screens. A high-tech, living mummy. "Is that so Avery? Unlike you though, I have some knowledge of what I'm getting myself into. A higher purpose, if you like."

"You think so. . ? Then you are even more of a self-deluded idiot. . . than I had thought."

"We're all entitled to our opinions _Lord_ Rose. However small and inconsequential they may be."

"How generous. . ." His rasping laughter went on for quite some time, eventually breaking down into yet another prolonged fit of coughing.

"You find something amusing?"

"You've lost her. . . haven't you? Had her for less than. . . a day and let her slip. . . straight through your fingers. . . That's why you're here. Isn't it?"

"And what might you know about that Avery?" On the surface light and innocuous, but with a perceptible undercurrent of darkness.

(Lara's breath caught. She realised suddenly that the reason Avery Rose hadn't given her up so far had nothing to do with her, the figurine, or any other consideration. No, he was simply taking the opportunity to play with this man. To frustrate him and exercise some small measure of power. Like he had done with her earlier. _Bad choice, Avery dear._ _Really bad choice_).

"Nothing, I assure you. . . But it is transparent. . . like you. Why else would you be here?"

Luke Charron's smile faded. "So far, Lord Rose, I have shown you only the bright and sunny side of my disposition. There are other sides I could show you just as well."

"Was. . . that supposed to be a threat."

"Feel free to take it how you like."

"One thing you should know. . . whoever the hell you are. I am not an easy man to threaten. . . What do you think. . . you could do to me, precisely?"

"You might be surprised."

At that moment one of Charron's bodyguards wandered across to the window and pushed one of the blinds aside, letting in a brilliant ray of late afternoon sunlight.

"Shut. . . it!"

"I'm sorry?" Feigned incomprehension.

"The blind. . . tell that fucking witless. . . baboon of yours to shut it!"

Charron's smile broadened again to match the sunlight for brightness. "What's the matter Avery? Don't you like the sunlight? To be brutally honest it looks like you could use a good deal more of it."

Rasping breathing, coming much too fast. "It. . . It hurts my eyes."

"Really? But that's not quite the truth, is it my _Lord_." That title seemed to be a source of amusement. "The reality is that you just don't like what it allows the rest of the world to see. Isn't that right?"

"Just fucking. . . shut it!"

Finally Luke Charron signalled his bodyguard with a casual wave of one hand. He let the blind drop back and gloom returned, seemingly darker and deeper than before.

"Now what is it. . . that you want?"

Charron didn't answer right away, instead taking another couple of limping footsteps closer to the bed so that he was standing directly over Avery Rose, looking down. (Lara could now read the make of his shoes and make out the wood grain in his walking stick. If she'd felt so inclined she could have reached out, grabbed hold of his ankle, and yanked it out from under him).

"Your earlier slip about unexpected visitors. You didn't really mean the police, did you my _Lord_? There was someone else, wasn't there?"

(_Oh, bugger_).

Avery Rose didn't answer, just looking up at Luke Charron with his darkly gleaming eyes – seemingly the only living part of him.

"That screen there, why is it blank? Something you don't want me to see?"

"The hum it makes. . . it gives me a headache."

"Really? Turn it on in any case would you my _Lord_? I wouldn't want there be an atmosphere of mistrust between us."

(Lara tensed as she realised she still had the remote, so Avery Rose couldn't do what the One-Legged Man asked, even if he'd wanted to. She tried to focus on the position of the two bodyguards, visualising in her head the shots she would have to make).

"No." More coughing.

"A pity. I try my hardest, and what do I get?"

"You break. . . into my home and try to. . . threaten me. What do you. . . expect?"

Luke Charron let out an audible sigh. "That question was rhetorical my _Lord_. It didn't require a response. Now, back to visitors I think. Someone has been in contact with you. That is how you know I no longer have Alecto. That someone would have been Lara Croft, perhaps?"

(A momentary shock from hearing her name from those lips. But of course, he would have been in touch with Lomax. He would know she had the figurine).

"Lara. . . Croft?"

"Don't feign ignorance Avery." The 'my _Lord'_ joke had apparently worn thin. "I know full well that you know who I'm talking about. You hired her once I believe, before the two of you had a. . . falling out."

"I. . . know who she is. I'm just surprised you'd think. . ." He broke off into a dry hacking sound. "You have to know that. . . she hates me. If I was burning to death. . . I doubt that she'd pause to. . . spit on me."

"Oh dear. And why would she have such a low opinion of you?"

"Tell me your. . . name and why you want those three. . . Christ damned whores, and perhaps I'll share."

A delay. 

(Under the bed, unable to see what was going on or read the nuances of their interactions, Lara could nevertheless feel the tension building to an almost unbearable crescendo).

"No. No, I think not Avery," Luke Charron said eventually, pursing his lips contemplatively. "You are not going to be cooperative whatever I say or do, are you? You're just a pathetic shell drowning in your own bitterness."

"Whatever. . . Now fuck of and leave me in peace. . . I need my beauty sleep."

Before Luke Charron could respond there was a burst of distant but distinctly audible gunfire. He turned to the second of his bodyguards, standing beside the door. "Go and see what that is. And if necessary put a stop to it."

The bodyguard inclined his head and departed wordlessly.

(_What the hell?_ Lomax, Lara finally guessed. Somehow the bastard had managed to follow her, and was obviously displaying his usual subtle method of gaining entrance to stately homes. She almost laughed. _Somehow I don't think your boss is going to be overly impressed_).

"Something. . . the matter?"

Luke Charron shrugged. "It's not my home that's getting shot up. Now back to business. . ."

"You were about to. . . fuck off as I recall."

"Yes, yes. But one minor detail to take care of first. If that is Croft down there making all that racket I'd hate to think you'd be inclined to be any more cooperative with her than you were with me."

(Lara felt the change in the air instantly. A prickling crackle of static that sent crawly little sensations playing across her skin and lifted the fine hairs at the nape of her neck. The artificial fibres of the nurse's uniform suddenly felt alive against her flesh).

"What. . ?" Avery Rose broke down again and this time he couldn't manage to get it under control again, his entire body shaking with the strain as the coughing grew progressively worse.

Luke Charron's face appeared to have become set in stone – an immobile mask. It might have been simply optical illusion, but it seemed as if the light in the room was being drawn into him, his surroundings darkening noticeably whilst he himself began to shine.

Through the coughing Avery Rose was trying to speak, but he couldn't manage to force the words beyond his lips. His body twitched and spasmed, while around him the VDU screens broke up one by one into a howling mess of static. His face looked to be turning slowly purple.

(Lara felt the air around her getting hotter and hotter, sweat forming on her skin. Her vision distorted, writhing worm-like patterns crawling before her eyes. A tight core of elemental dread formed within her).

One of the LCD screens exploded in a brilliant shock of sparks, glass showering across the bed and Rose's twitching, gagging form. A second later and another of the screens went, then a third and a fourth in quick succession with ear splitting retorts.

More sparks rained down upon the bed, sizzling where they struck his skin. Small flames caught on the bedclothes, crackling hungrily, spreading rapidly, licking at the air. Something unseen howled with a desperate, ravenous hunger.

"Come _Vaatusu_, feast!" Luke Charron's voice, scarcely human.

(Beneath the bed the heat had become unbearable. Lara moved, coming to the rapid conclusion that a bullet was better than being slow roasted).

Abruptly Avery Rose let out a terrible, fear-laden cry and all the remaining screens exploded simultaneously. The entire bed erupted in a single great mass of roaring flame and the room was filled with insane, echoing laughter as _something_ came forth.

* * *

"Hold fire." Simon Bulford-North held his arm across Rankin to prevent him from shooting. The woman scrambled the last couple of metres through the door to safety.

After a moment Rankin looked round at him. "I could have had her. She was dead in my sights." His South London accent held a distinctly aggrieved note.

"Yes, I know," Simon replied simply. His gaze fixed on the still half-open door she'd escaped through. To tell the truth he could have had them both, before Rankin had even begun to bring his gun to bear. Yet he hadn't taken the shot – had deliberately pulled it high. 

Like he'd deliberately missed a clear bead on Croft, earlier in the day.

"Then why the fuck did you stop me? Lomax said kill 'em."

"Really? I heard Lomax say to delay them."

They held each other's gaze. Rankin was the first to look away. "I just fix things. Machines an' so on. It's you guys who are the experts when it comes to shooting people." An oblique concession of authority.

Simon nodded. "Glad you see it that way".

There was no sign of movement from beyond the doorway. Simon kept his gun – comfortable as an old lover in his grasp – trained on it anyway. Part of him wondered why he bothered. _Turning into a pacificist?_ Not good in a professional mercenary. "I'm getting tired of killing people just because they happen to be in our way." It was a moment before he realised he'd spoken out loud.

Rankin merely grunted.

They waited. All remained quiet.

"So, we just gonna sit here?"

"Don't see why not," was Simon's response, implacably calm. "I checked it. Some kind of art collection. All the windows are barred and there's no other way out. We give Lomax his time, then we head on out."

Another grunt. "Don't like it."

"You'd prefer going in after them?"

Rankin didn't answer – just looked disconsolate. "This is it for us, isn't it?"

"The One-Legged Man? Nah, we've survived worse. Lomax is just in one of his morbid moods." Simon knew very well that wasn't what Rankin had meant, but he didn't want to go into it just now.

Rankin apparently didn't share his reticence. "Not what I'm talking about. I mean us. We're falling apart. You. Lomax. Hicks. Once you guys were like brothers. Now you spend most of the time at each other's throats. However this turns out we aren't going to last, are we?"

He had a point, Simon had to concede, although it was hardly the time. It closely echoed some of his own thoughts. "Everything's got to come to an end Rankin. And when you think about it, would it really be such a bad thing?"

"Not for you maybe. You've got skills. Me, what do I do? You guys have been like a family. Going back to getaway drivin' don't have much appeal."

Simon was feeling acutely uncomfortable with all this. "You're a mechanic. A bleeding good one too. And you've got to have some money stashed, right? You'll manage."

"Yeah. I guess."

Thankfully a small stealthy sound from beyond the doorway put an end to all the rumination. Simon's attention snapped firmly onto it.

More waiting. "What are they doing in there?" Rankin muttered under his breath.

Nothing happened.

"You let Croft get away, didn't you?"

Simon started as Rankin broke the silence. Suddenly the ex-SAS man felt icily cold. "What did you say?"

"The Croft woman. You let her go. So that Lomax wouldn't have her killed."

It was all too easy, Simon reflected, to underestimate Rankin. To mistake a lack of articulacy for a lack of intelligence and awareness. Then he'd come out with something like this and shock you.

"Oh, don't worry. I'm not going to tell Lomax or any of the others about it. I'm not stupid."

_Unlike me._ He'd seen something in Croft. Something he'd admired and felt a kind of empathy for. Something he'd managed to loose in himself a long past. _Hopeless bloody romantic git._ Now, for all the good it did, it looked like she was going to end up dead anyway. "It wasn't what you think Rankin."

"I know it weren't 'cause you wanted to get in her pants – like Travis – if that's what you mean."

Definitely surprising sometimes, Rankin. Simon opened his mouth to reply.

From upstairs there was the sound of gunfire and his words died.

* * *

Lara rolled out from underneath the bed just as it erupted into flame, stray embers smouldering where they landed on her uniform

The sudden brightness gave her a few fractions of a second leeway she wouldn't otherwise of had. She was able to spring to her feet and have her gun levelled before the bodyguard had gotten his hand halfway to the weapon in his shoulder holster. Without pausing to think about it, she shot him.

He gave a soft, sigh-like exhalation as a flower of blood appeared in the centre of his forehead. Then he collapsed. The sheer casual ease of it was probably the worst thing. His head bounced against the floor with a dull thud.

Before he'd even finished falling Lara was turning, gun fixing on its next target: the One-Legged Man.

It was a disconcerting mixture of premonition and a feeling of warmth emanating from the pistol's grip. Before she could fire something screamed inside her head for her to drop it and she obeyed instinctively.

The pistol exploded before it hit the floor, every bullet in the clip detonating simultaneously, metal mushrooming outwards as if it was nothing more than paper. If she'd been holding it, it would have torn her hand off.

Gaping, Lara took several rapid steps backwards.

"Now, now. Hardly polite to shoot me before we've even been properly introduced."

Her eyes fixed upon his face. The firelight reflected redly in the lenses of his sunglasses, and in his too white teeth. There was a momentary irrational feeling that she'd been transported straight to hell and this was the devil, welcoming her personally. She fought it down. "Silly me. Wouldn't want to be impolite, would I?"

Between them the fire crackled. At its heart Avery Rose had stopped moving and was now turning black, his skin crackling like frying bacon. 

Nauseatingly he smelled very much like frying bacon too. 

There was something wrong with the flames. Lara took several more rapid paces backwards until she could feel the wall against her back. She fought to maintain control over the animal part inside that was responding with instinctive terror. 

They were moving far too exaggeratedly, as if whipped by a strong wind. The patterns they danced to were strangely symmetrical, and the sounds they were making as they consumed Avery Rose and the bedclothes began to resemble voices. Hungry, eager, lustful voices.

Shaken, Lara forced her attention back to the One-Legged Man. He hadn't moved and his broad grin hadn't wavered in the slightest. Patterns of shadow played across his skin in time to the dancing of the flames. "So nice to see you again Lara. Lovelier than ever, though your fashion sense seems to have gone downhill. A touch unexpected, but always very welcome."

"I'm sorry. I wasn't aware we'd met." Her mouth was dry and she felt acutely naked with her gun so rapidly and dramatically taken from her.

"Not met exactly. Though I feel I almost know you."

Another shudder, quickly suppressed. The air writhed around him, alive like the flames. She noticed that despite the heat from the blazing bed he wasn't sweating in the slightest. More than could be said for her. 

__

The Devil. Her earlier thought came back to roost. _No, hardly with a New York accent_. "I'm afraid I don't seem to be quite as familiar with your career."

"Just a humble businessman. No reason for you to know me." If that smile got any wider his entire face would be teeth. "Luke Charron by name."

_Charron._ She'd heard that name before, she was sure, but the memory wouldn't come through the crawling in her gut. She stared at him.

A hundred and sixty or so pounds, and verging on the slender. Ten years older than her at least. Toned, but only in the way of someone who wants to keep their waistline in check. And, of course, missing his right leg from below the knee. Normally she wouldn't have hesitated for a moment over tackling someone like this – except possibly to worry about a GBH charge. Right now she would have rather jumped naked into a cobra pit than taken another step towards him.

"What did you do to him?" Despite her best efforts her gaze kept coming back to the flames and what lay at their heart.

"Magic." The reply was flippant and joky, but it left Lara feeling cold. Underneath she got the sense he was deadly serious.

"Magic? Well, if you say so." She affected a sniff. "Bit over the top I thought."

"The _Vaatusu_ must be fed."

"Oh the _Vaatusu_. That explains everything." At her use of the name the flames leapt even higher, a sound like hissing laughter emanating from their heart.

"I'm happy. Now Lara, if you'd be so kind as to hand _Her_ over we can end this without further unpleasantness."

"Excuse me? Her?"

The wattage of that smile toned down considerably. "You know what I mean. I can feel _Her_ presence on you. You reek of _Her_. Give me your backpack and I'll be on my way." He extended a hand promptingly.

She caught herself halfway to doing exactly what he asked. "What was that supposed to be? Your version of Jedi mind trick? You've certainly got the name for it."

He laughed. "Very droll Lara. But it really would be in your best interests if you did as I asked. She isn't a nice person. You really don't want to get involved with her."

"Whilst you of course, are a latter day saint." Lara forced herself not to glance sideways at the door. It seemed an awfully long way away, and she was willing to bet that those things in the flames – those _Vaatusu_, whatever the hell they were – could move quickly. "Perhaps if you explained what you wanted the figurine for I'd be more inclined to do as you ask."

"Now is hardly the time for long explanations." A pointed glance at the blazing bed. The flames had confined themselves rather improbably to just one place and there wasn't nearly as much smoke as there should have been. "Hand her over, and perhaps I could tell you later. Over dinner?" Mr. Conviviality.

"I'm sure. You know for someone who describes themselves as a businessman you've said very little that makes any business sense."

"So we cut to the heart of the matter. Remuneration. Do you not consider your life sufficiently valuable?"

"Ah, threats. How jolly."

"Hardly a threat my dear. Just pointing a small fact of life. Look at how she left poor old Avery. Most people would regard what I'm offering as a favour."

"Which you do purely out of the goodness of your heart? I must say I am impressed. Tell you what, sod off and I'll seriously think about it." One thing she knew with absolute certainty was that she didn't want the figurine falling into this man's hands. Even in fancy make-up she could spot a monster.

"Lara, Lara, Lara. . ."

"Patronising me isn't going to help your case much."

The smile disappeared as if a switch had been flicked. "Perhaps I should move on to threats after all. You seem determined to be stubborn."

It was Lara's turn to smile, albeit with considerable effort. "Stubborn? You should talk to my father about stubborn."

"The _Vaatusu_ Lara. They are hungry for you. They want to devour you, body and soul, just like they devoured poor Avery. It takes all my will just to keep them in check. I'm beginning to believe you're not worthy of all my will.

They stared at one another. Charron's sunglasses looked like the eyes of a gigantic insect in the firelight.

"Give _Her_ to me."

From somewhere close outside the bedroom door there was a short burst of suppressed gunfire followed by a muffled cry.

"Looks like you forgot one very important question, Luke _dear_."

"And what's that?" Impatience finally leaked through.

"Well it's certainly not me out there doing the shooting. _So who is it_?"

As if on cue the door flew open with a juddering crash. Four armed, black clad men burst through it. "On the floor. Now!"

Lara was already moving, taking advantage of the momentary distraction. A gun swung her way and she dove behind a dresser for cover.

"Ah Mr. Lomax. I hope you'll consider me exempt from that particular order. Your timing is either exquisitely good or exquisitely bad. I can't quite make up my mind."

There were several heartbeats of absolute stillness. Then one of the gunmen shot him; a short controlled burst.

* * *

"That was too fucking close." Emil's voice was barely a whisper. To his frazzled nerves it felt like several minutes had passed and the gunmen outside showed no sign of coming in after them.

There was no response from Joanna. He risked taking his eyes quickly from the doorway to look at her.

She was leaning, half-propped against one of the score of display cases filling the room. Her hands were leaving sweaty palm prints on the glass and her fringe had fallen across her eyes, concealing them from view. Her breathing was shallow and too fast.

"Joanna?"

No response. He took a couple of paces towards her, and finally she seemed to become aware of his presence again. She looked up at him. Her face was slick with sweat and her eyes looked too bright – feverish. Her mouth opened to say something, but no sound came out. Instead her legs buckled and a moment later she collapsed.

Emil darted forward, managing to catch hold of her just before she thudded, completely limp, into the floor. The sudden weight pulled agonisingly at his already tortured back muscles and he had to bite down hard to prevent himself from crying out.

Heart thudding, he lowered her as gently he could the rest of the way to the floor, then span back to face the door.

No one came through it right away. After about thirty seconds Emil came to the conclusion that Joanna's collapse hadn't been as loud and obvious as it had seemed. He let his gaze drop back to her, his hand searching for a pulse at her throat. 

__

Shit. Stupid, bloody, stubborn, irresponsible. . . A deep breath of relief as he found the pulse, not strong but apparently steady. _What the hell am I supposed to do with you now?_ He rolled her over onto her side into the recovery position. _Damn sure I'm not carrying you again_.

Urgency bubbling furiously beneath the surface, he began to take proper stock of their surroundings for the first time, searching for a way out.

The room was vast. It looked, he decided, like an exhibition gallery in a museum. 

The display case Joanna had been leaning against contained a pair of samurai swords – katana with matching wakazashi. Other cases held further weaponry – one claymore in particular he noted – jewellery, idols made of gilded bronze, several urns and vases, a collection of African tribal masks, a disturbing looking grinning crystal skull, and a myriad of other items that his gaze flitted across without taking in. There were several larger, freestanding items too – a gilded mummy case, a bust of some Hellenic Goddess, missing one arm but otherwise remarkably intact, a wooden representation of Vishnu. 

There was no particular theme, or rhyme or reason. Items from all corners of the globe and all periods of history were mixed together higgledy-piggledy. The collection of someone that Lara would disparagingly refer to as a magpie, he thought. 

His gaze turned immediately to the windows. Any optimism that they might have offered dissipated quickly. The glass looked so thick that it could probably take an entire clip of one of those gunmen's MP5s and still not break. Then there were the bars, painted white so as not to show up so much from the outside, but very, very solid looking.

A quick scan of the ceiling. Solid plaster and thick oak beams, high above his head. There were a couple of air-conditioning vents on the walls, but these were all of six inches across and in any case out of reach.

It came back to the doors they'd come in by. The only way they were going to leave – through those two gunmen.

_How much time had passed? _Too much, he concluded. The others would have reached Avery Rose by now.

As if to confirm his suspicion there was the sound of a distant gunshot. Emil cursed vehemently beneath his breath.

He glanced back at Joanna. To his surprise she was sitting up. Still, she looked like she'd struggle to take on a kitten. Words of beration – about taking notice of what the damned doctors said – were swallowed back. Hardly constructive given the current situation.

Their eyes met. He saw the question in them and shook his head. "Trapped," he mouthed, indicating the door.

She nodded, then pressed the heel of her hand between her eyes. After a couple of seconds she tried to stand up.

He looked back at the door. _What are they waiting for?_ They could have come through any moment during the last few minutes and it would have been all over. Were they even still there? He hadn't heard anything, but that didn't mean much.

At length he cleared his throat. "You. Out there. I think we should talk."

* * *

The bullets never found their target.

It wasn't that the shooter – Langer – was a bad shot. In fact his aim was perfect. The end result should have been a perforated body, lying on the floor and very shortly on its way to becoming a corpse.

But it didn't happen like that.

The writhing air in front of Luke Charron flexed like an unfolding curtain – a giant, insubstantial hand. The next few events occurred so quickly that they were impossible to see as anything other than a jumbled blur. At the end of it though, Charron was still standing calmly upright – apparently untouched. Around him the distortion in the air had become a rapidly rotating maelstrom. In it span six chunks of metal. 

Langer's bullets.

There was a single moment of deathly silence when everyone stopped and gaped."That was a mistake." Charron make a simple gesture towards Langer, who was staring at his gun as if it was an old friend who had betrayed him.

Then the storm broke.

The bullets spat straight back at Langer, their accuracy unerring. Langer's body jerked violently at the repeated impacts. His jaw dropped, his expression one of befuddled surprise. Then a gout of dark blood erupted from his mouth and he toppled over backwards, hitting the carpet with a lifeless thud.

Lomax dropped to his knees beside his fallen comrade. There was nothing that could be done. Hicks knocked Travis's weapon aside just as he opened fire, this stream of bullets missing Charron entirely and stitching a line in the carpet.

"Consider our contract cancelled."

Lomax looked up from Langer's corpse, hate written on his face. He never got the chance to voice his retort however.

The flames that had previously been confined to the bed suddenly leapt into the air, shrieking and cackling. Fragments broke off and spiralled around the room insanely, all the light fittings exploding simultaneously in showers of glass and sparks. 

Lomax was forced to scramble backwards frantically as a tongue of vivid orange flame lashed out towards him, immolating Langer's lifeless body. Another fragment of the flame brushed the leg of Travis's combat trousers as he tried to jump out of its way, setting it alight. Crying out in panic he fell over backwards, desperately trying to beat it out.

A cacophony of inhumanly demented voices filled the room with their babbling insanity, making it impossible to think straight. Several of the blinds were ripped down from the walls, letting the late afternoon sunlight stream in through the windows. Illumination just turned the entire scene into one that was even more hellish.

Windows exploded inwards, the glass caught up into spinning maelstroms of razor sharp fragments. These advanced steadily across the room, tearing up the carpet as they went. The flames leapt even higher.

Untouched at the heart of it, Luke Charron laughed aloud. The sound was a mixture of ecstasy and childlike glee.

Lara, still crouching behind the dresser, felt a stab of pain as a fragment of razor sharp glass sliced across her upper arm. The cut was shallow but bloody, and it served to bring her back into focus from the status of gape-mouthed observer. She was suddenly aware of one of the spinning maelstrom of glass and flame breaking off from and veering towards her. The invisible thing at its heart slobbered with dreadful hunger.

A quick glance showed that the mercenaries were still blocking the door, but they were distracted by there own problems. She made a break for it.

Just as Travis managed to get his blazing trouser-leg put out another fire caught on his sleeve. He let out a howl that sounded dangerously close to the edge. Hicks caught hold of him by the back of his collar and dragged him bodily backwards through the door, half strangling him in the process.

"Lomax." Hicks' artificial voice, unable to display the inflections of emotion, sounded insane by virtue of its calmness.

Lomax was still crouching on the floor as close to Langer as the heat from the blazing body would allow, as if he still to hoped to be able to do something for him. He was staring at the laughing form of Luke Charron.

"Get your ass in gear." Hicks again.

He didn't seem to hear.

Lara tried to dodge around the mercenary leader as, right behind her, the maelstrom of glass and flame tore into the dresser. There was a loud cracking sound and splinters of wood flew. Finally Lomax seemed to be spurred back to life, catching hold of her ankle as she went past and sending her crashing face down onto the floor.

The breath went out of her. Gasping, she rolled over onto her back, lashing out hard with her foot. Lomax managed to raise an arm to block the blow from landing on his face. She kicked out a second time but only managed to hit his shoulder this time. He ignored it as if it was of no more consequence than a mosquito bite. One of his hands took a fist full of nurse's uniform and used it to haul her into him – like he was landing a large and particularly difficult fish.

"This. Is. All. Your. Fault." It came through gritted teeth and there was a spark of madness in his eyes. Lara was horribly aware of the maelstrom – the _Vaatusu_ – chewing its way through the dresser just a few feet away. Cackling, hunger filled voices seemed to come from every direction at once.

The heel of Lara's hand slammed into the underside of his jaw, snapping his head back violently and bloodying his mouth. A second identical blow and she tried desperately to break free of his grip. The maelstrom would be straight on top of them any second.

Lomax appeared oblivious to pain. His grip didn't slacken in the slightest, and he hit her so hard in the stomach that she almost blacked out. Then he was directly on top of her, shaking her violently, several buttons from the nurse's uniform flying off. Her head jarred repeatedly against the carpeted floor.

As he raised a fist to smash down into her face a shard of glass sliced through the back of his hand, the razor sharp tip emerging from the centre of his palm. Lomax stopped and stared at it blankly, as if he couldn't work out what had happened. 

Hot splatters of blood rained down on Lara. Gritting her teeth she lashed out again, this time catching him in the groin with her knee. His grip finally slackened sufficiently for her to break free, and she slithered rapidly backwards across the floor towards the open door.

Then Hicks was back. He grabbed hold of his boss and yanked him bodily towards the door, pausing just long enough to take hold of Lara around her upper arm and pull her after him. The instant they were clear Travis slammed the door shut, for the moment at least trapping hell on the other side of it.

* * *

"Okay then. Talk." Simon's response: he'd been mildly surprised to hear the voice from inside and his attention was now firmly fixed on his surroundings in case this was some kind of attempt at a distraction.

"So why exactly are we shooting at each other then?"

"Go on." His voice was flat – emotionless.

There was a hesitation before a reply came back. Simon guessed the speaker – the black man, obviously – was improvising, and had been hoping for something more substantial.

"I mean, I've got no idea who you are, never mind what you want. I'm guessing that you're in a similar position with regards to us. It seems a bit silly to be trying to kill each other on that basis, don't you think?"

"Believe me, if I was trying to kill you you'd both already be dead."

Again a pause. "So, if you're not trying to kill us, what are you trying to do?"

Simon considered a moment and settled for the truth. "I'm trying to delay you. So you can't interfere with us until we've got what we've come for and are safely clear. After that you're welcome to do whatever you want."

Another long pause. There was something going on upstairs. It wasn't so much the distant noise he thought he heard – breaking glass? – but a feeling. A sense of something ominous and deadly that made his throat clench. He threw a silent, questioning look Rankin's way.

Rankin simply shook his head, indicating his comm. unit. Simon could hear the faint crackle of static from it. "Can't get through."

Simon grimaced.

"Look, how do you know we wouldn't be better off co-operating? This is hardly helping either of us and it's only a matter of time before the police show up."

"We've got time yet. We're in the middle of nowhere and they're not going to be quick putting an armed response unit together out here. Besides, you work for a rival of the One-Legged Man, don't you? Perhaps you'd like to explain what you were doing chasing Mr. Hutchings yesterday? 'Cause I doubt very much our goals are compatible."

"The One-Legged Man? You mean Luke Charron, right?"

Simon's response was dry. "Since you know the name and clearly don't work for him I very much doubt we're going to be friends."

There was another noise from somewhere upstairs: a crash of splintering wood, and something else; something that made Simon's heart thud inside his chest. _What the hell is going on up there?_

"Isn't that a rather unreasonable attitude to take."

"Who says I'm a reasonable man?" Simon was getting rather impatient with the whole conversation. He wanted to know what was happening upstairs. "Perhaps your lady friend would like to say something. Just so I know you're not simply trying to provide a distraction for her."

Several seconds of silence.

"My mother told me not to talk to men I hadn't been formally introduced to." Dry, sardonic, with a distinctly American accent. Definitely female.

"Very wise person, your mother sounds."

Suddenly Rankin's comm. unit burst into life, squealing horrendously with static. ". . . out of. .!" Then it went dead. 

Rankin and Simon exchanged another look. "Well, fun as it's been I don't think we've got anything else to say to each other."Abruptly there was the sound of multiple footsteps rapidly approaching the door at the end of the corridor. Security, belatedly responding to the intrusion.

Simon sent a short burst of gunfire their way to act as a discouragement. Then he and Rankin came to the conclusion that it was time to leave.

* * *

"Get that fucking statue off her!" Lomax groaned aloud as he tried to pull the shard of glass from where it impaled his mangled hand. It was too slick with blood for him to get a proper grip on it though, and he had to give up, his face screwed tight with pain.

Lara backed away a couple of steps. "You can't seriously mean to give it to him still?"

The look he shot her was venomous, if slightly saner than it had been a few seconds ago. "Travis!"

"With pleasure."

Lara took a few more paces backwards, her gaze swinging to the hulking brute who'd tried to rape her yesterday. His face was sullen and mean.

"Take another step and I fill you with lead bitch. Don't think I won't."

"Hello again Travis. How's your eye?" She flashed him a smile even though she was feeling sick to the stomach inside. She could still feel the _Vaatusu_, hungry and lustful and much too close for comfort. All her instincts were screaming at her to run away as fast as she possibly could. "I never did get the opportunity to thank you for helping me escape last night."

Travis's face turned purple. She thought for a moment he was simply going to shoot her and be done with it, but Hicks barged his way between them.

"Give me your backpack Miss Croft." He extended his hand towards her. For the first time she noticed a couple of his fingers were a joint short. "We don't have time for this."

"My point exactly." After a moment's hesitation she extended the backpack towards him. Part of her was screaming not to do it, but she couldn't see any alternative. "This is ridiculous you know."

He shrugged, not saying anything. She got the impression he privately agreed.

Just as he was about to take it from her grasp the door behind them exploded.

The strength of the blast threw her back against the wall, and she heard Lomax bellow with pain as he was forced to catch himself with his impaled hand. Travis was thrown against Hicks, sending the pair of them staggering.

The _Vaatusu_ began to pour through the opening they'd made, insane laughter echoing. Flames and sparkling patterns of broken glasses span in whirling dervishes, mixed in with broken lengths of splintered wood. Tearing up the carpet and shredding the plaster from the walls as they went, they sped towards them.

There was a moment of awful, paralysing panic when Lara couldn't make herself move, just watching their advance. Then she finally managed to get her legs working. "Run!"

She obeyed her own instruction.

Lomax ducked beneath a jet of flame, which set an antique wall hanging alight. "After the fucking bitch." He grabbed hold of Travis and yanked him free of Hicks as the two of them were still struggling to disentangle themselves. Another dagger-sharp shard of glass left a two-inch gash along his cheekbone as it flew past, embedding itself in the centre of a painting. He didn't even notice.

The _Vaatusu_ followed at their heels, shrieking.

Lara rounded a corner in a flat out sprint, the three mercenaries trailing close after her. Behind them the corridor was transformed into something out of a nightmare, everything loose or able to be torn loose spinning wildly in the air – as if impelled by a horde of extremely bad tempered poltergeists. Flames crawled rapidly across the ceiling, showing strange constantly shifting patterns that occasionally resolved into something resembling screaming faces. They seemed to pace themselves to the runners in front of them, allowing them to stay just in front of the chaos's leading edge but not letting them pull away, drinking up the fear.

Around another corner, and the four of them barely managed to avoid colliding with two men coming the other way: Avery Rose's security guards, far too late. 

One of them pulled a handgun and yelled, "Freeze!"

No one took any notice, barrelling straight past him whilst he stood there, not quite knowing how to respond to being ignored.

His partner was quicker on the uptake, turning tail and running with them as the first flicker of flame came into view. He, on the other hand, tried to stand his ground.

Lara heard him get off three shots before the shrieking and cackling of the _Vaatusu_ rose to an ear-splitting din. The screams were barely audible over the racket, and they ended quickly enough, replaced by horrible wet slobbering and tearing sounds. 

She didn't look back. Nothing could have persuaded her to look back.

The top of the stairs loomed ahead. She could feel the heat of the flames, nearer than ever, their ravenous appetite palpable. There was no slowing down and she was going much too fast. . .

She took the stairs three and four at a time, maintaining her balance as much by fluke as judgment. Beside her she heard Lomax yelling a curse that nine parts fear. Then the second security guard, still trailing them by a couple of metres screamed.

A moment later there was a loud thud, quickly followed by a series of others bumps in rapid succession as he tumbled forward, head over heels. He managed to collect Hicks and Travis on the way, the three of them sprawling in a tangled knot of limbs onto the intermediate landing.

Lara herself only just managed to hurdle the flailing melee as they bounced past her and even then she stumbled to her knees, barely catching herself on the railings. Lomax was shoved hard in the back and overshot the landing down the next flight of stairs, unable to arrest his momentum. He let out a howl of rage mixed with borderline panic as he struggled desperately to stay upright.

First Hicks, then Travis, began to disentangle themselves from the mess. The security guard could only groan with pain, barely conscious. Lara could see that his leg was twisted under him at a sickeningly implausible angle.

Whilst Travis took to immediate, stumbling flight, past her down the stairs Hicks actually tried to help the man. There wasn't any time.

The _Vaatusu_ pounced.

Hicks managed to get clear by a whisker, slightly singed and bleeding from several shallow cuts. The security guard didn't.

Lara couldn't help but see what happened this time. A wavefront of flame and shards of broken glass smashed down straight on top of the man. There was a momentary shriek as he was simultaneously burned and stabbed several hundred times over. Then it was cut off and there was only the sound of his flesh being carved up – a ravenous diner attacking a plate of food without the benefit of anything resembling table manners.

Sickened, she forced herself to move again, Hicks close behind.

At the foot of the stairs Travis turned and fired a volley of bullets back past them, into the heart of the maelstrom. There was nothing substantial to hit though, the bullets simply splintering banister railings and punching holes in the carpet. Lomax grabbed him angrily.

The _Vaatusu_ broke off from their feast with an echoing howl, surging after them in a tidal wave of flame. Lara caught a glimpse of charred and dismembered body parts spinning amidst the other debris, then they were in headlong flight again.

This time the _Vaatusu_ gained rapidly, the twin tastes of blood apparently whetting their appetite for more. No more playing.

Stark, primordial terror threatened to overwhelm her. She could feel the heat getting closer and closer to her back; hear its cackling gibberish myriad of voices, louder and louder. Any second now. . . She tried to force herself faster.

Ahead of them Lomax flung a door open and dove through it. They piled through after him,. The door slammed shut about six inches ahead of the _Vaatusu_.

* * *

Emil was in the middle of trying to explain that he was a policeman; that he had every right to be where he was, and any attempt to push him around would be a mistake. The security guard he was berating – one of three – looked half-tempted to just shoot him and let someone else handle the fallout.

The scream cut them off.

"Right, all of you lot with me. I'll overlook the fact you're carrying illegal weapons for the moment. Now get a bloody move on." To his private amazement they actually obeyed.

"What are your names?" Spoken as they were heading in the direction the scream had come from, Joanna bringing up the rear.

Dark looks shared between the three of them; nothing said.

"So you know who I'm talking to." Emil let out a sigh of exasperation. "I've got other things to worry about than arresting you just now. Make something up if you prefer."

Nothing.

"Okay, you're Larry. You're Curly. You're Moe. Deal? Good." He ignored the protests.

There was a second scream, rapidly cut off, followed by another burst of gunfire and a bizarre howling noise that surely couldn't have originated from a human throat. Emil stopped, chilled, and the three stooges almost managed to live up to their new names, barely avoiding tripping over one another.

"Him." Joanna's voice held a flat fatalism.

"Him?" Emil echoed.

"Charron. Who do you think I mean?"

_Pardon me for not being a mindreader._ He could feel himself sweating – an irrational sense of borderline panic. "Charron? What do you mean Charron?"

"He's here. Or at least his elementals are. You've felt them before haven't you? You know what I mean." 

He knew all right. Images of Hutchings and dead men coming to life wouldn't easily go away. "What the hell is Charron doing here?"

She looked at him as if he was chronically simple. "At a guess? Tidying up Rose. Seems like you were on the right track. Pity it's too late."

_Fuck. Fuck. Fuck._ Why did nothing ever go to plan?

"It means we've got another shot at the bastard though."

"_If_ he's here in person."

"He's here. These elementals aren't the sort that you can send from afar."

"You can tell that?" Obvious Scepticism.

Almost surprise that he couldn't. "You learn to recognise. One of the wild families; bringers of chaos and destruction. Unless there's someone to direct them they'd simply run amok. Far too unpredictable for him to leave to their own devices."

Larry, Curly and Moe were trying to sneak off, apparently coming to the conclusion that all this weird sounding shit wasn't anything they wanted any part off. Emil fixed them with a hard glare, freezing them in their tracks. "Up till now I've been rather hazy about certain aspects of the law. Mess with me and I may start remembering. It's your employer we're trying to help remember? He dies and you're looking for a new job."

Monetary concerns seemed to do the trick, though the air of nervousness coming off them was palpable

"They're coming this way. We don't want to meet them. Charron's going to be somewhere the other side of them. You don't voluntarily put yourself between these guys and their food."

Emil nodded abstractedly. She was the expert. 

Before they could start moving again the door at the opposite end of the corridor burst open and several figures burst through. Emil's jaw dropped.

* * *

The door buckled and splintered with the _Vaatusu's_ first blow, but just about held. Long enough at any rate for them to put another door between them. Intricacies like door handles appeared to be beyond the things.

They paused briefly to catch their breath and orientate themselves. Lomax made another attempt to extract the dagger of glass from his hand, letting out a hissing shriek between her teeth as he again failed, sending more blood splattering across the floor. "Why the fuck does she still have that blasted statue?" His rage and frustration were palpable.

Lara glared back at him. "This is stupid Lomax. We've got other things to worry about."

Hs face twisted. "If it wasn't for you Langer would still be alive."

"What?" She blinked, taking a step back from him. "And how do you work that one out?"

"Let me take a look at that." Hicks quickly interjected himself before Lomax exploded, reaching for his boss's ravaged and bleeding hand.

Lomax snatched it away, grimacing. "It'll wait."

Behind them came a resounding crash as the first of the doors between them gave way explosively.

"Come on! We've got to keep moving."

Travis for one didn't need telling, off and running before Lara had finished speaking. The rest of them weren't far behind as the remaining door shuddered violently in its frame, the red light of flames visible through the small gap beneath it.

They chose their route almost at random, simply trying to put as many solid obstacles as they could between themselves and it. 

The thing was still uncomfortably close behind them, despite their best efforts, and there was only so much house to try and hide in. Outside, without cover, they wouldn't be able to outrun it.

_Rose's collection_. The thought was abrupt. A half-memory stirred, but it was near impossible to concentrate through the rushing adrenaline and fear.

Suddenly there were two more black clad figures in front of them coming in the opposite direction. She recognised one immediately as Simon – hadn't up to now thought about the significance of his absence.

They managed to narrowly avoid a collision, bundling through the nearest door as the _Vaatusu _rounded into the corridor behind them.

"Why aren't you at the car?" Lomax demanded.

"We thought you could probably use some more direct help," Simon responded calmly as Lomax's face twisted in a snarl and they resumed their flight. "What the hell was that?"

"Charron."

"Charron?" Simon echoed before he could catch himself.

Lomax shot him a withering look.

"Where's Langer?"

The silence said everything that needed to be said. Behind them the _Vaatusu_ made as short and violent work of this door as all the rest.

_Where were they in relation to Avery Rose's collection?_ She tried to force herself to think back more than seven years. It didn't do much good – she'd completely lost track of where she was in Tarr House's maze-like interior.

"His collection?" She must have said something aloud without realising it, because Simon answered her. "Sounds like we've just come from there."

"Where?" Driven by urgency.

"What are you trying to pull?" Lomax, harsh and paranoid.

"There might be something there to stop that thing." An image of a crystal skull she'd once held, briefly. It was banished quickly as the _Vaatusu_ poured round the corner. The blackened, dismembered remains of one of the security guards cavorted at its head, appearing to dance some king of perverted jig. "No time to explain!"

Desperation drove them onwards. Simon took the lead this time, the rest of them close at his heels as the hounds of hell chased after.

Wall hangings flapped up on either side of them in the hot wind that preceded the _Vaatusu_, before catching alight and being torn free, becoming just another part of the maelstrom. Lara could feel the things closing inexorably – their ravenous hunger and glee – the air around her scorching hot and filled with small, stinging fragments of debris.

By the time they charged through the next set of doors – the corridor behind them a blackened and smoking shell – there was no more than a metre or so separating them from the Vaatusu's leading edge.

The surprise at seeing the figures in front of them almost made Lara hesitate for one almost-fatal instant, a splintered blade of glass snagging the back of her uniform. She managed just about to pull free without losing too much momentum.

_Emil?_ The evidence of her eyes refused to change however. _What the hell?_

She could see him staring at her, jaw hanging open. There was a woman standing slightly behind him, and three more of Avery Rose's security guards. They took one look at what was coming through the door behind her and turned and legged it as fast as they could in the opposite direction. By far the most sensible reaction of any of them.

"Here! The door there on the right," Simon yelled.

They all made it through – Lara, the mercenaries, Emil and Joanna – by the smallest margin possible. The heavily reinforced doors slammed directly in the face of the _Vaatusu_ with a resounding crash. 

A tongue of flame mixed with broken glass and smouldering splinters of wood made it through the gap before it closed, cut off from the main body in the corridor.

As the doors shook violently in their frame from the _Vaatusu's_ assaults – for the moment at least holding – the individual that had found its way inside shrieked, spinning furiously. It went for the nearest person to it – Rankin.

Rankin cried out, jumping frantically back, his arms coming up to shield his face. Glass shards tore through his clothing, leaving deep bloody gouges in his flesh while the flames burnt and cauterised. Rankin's cries changed from terror to pain.

Travis's attempt to shoot the thing off his comrade almost ended up doing Rankin even more drastic harm, whilst everyone else's attempts proved equally futile. It quickly became apparent that trying to fight something completely insubstantial was next to impossible.

As it continued to rip into him Rankin's cries and struggles weakened and he collapsed backwards onto the floor. The doors shuddered a second time, flakes of plaster falling from the surrounding walls.

Lara tore her attention away from Rankin's struggles, her gaze sweeping the room for a sign of what she looking for. Amidst everything else it difficult to spot, and she aimed a silent curse at the collection's late owner. 

In the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of the woman with Emil doing something a touch strange – taking a small packet from a pocket and tearing it open. She cast its contents – some kind of powder – at Rankin and the _Vaatusu_.

The result was instantaneous and spectacular.

There was an ear-splittingly high-pitched scream that made all the glass around them reverberate. Abruptly the churning mass of flame and debris shot up, off Rankin, bouncing off the ceiling. Its rate of spin increased insanely until the flames extinguished in a puff, then, a second or so later, all the debris within it was expelled like the shrapnel in a claymore mine. Everybody ducked instinctively, even though it passed well over their heads.

Finally there was another shriek and the sense of something invisible shooting at speed into one of the room's corners. There it lurked malevolently, licking its wounds.

For a second or so there was silence. Then the _Vaatusu_ on the other side of the doors made another strenuous attempt to get through. This time a metal plate inside one of the doors buckled inwards. Wisps of grey-white smoke curled up from beneath it. For the moment it held, but it was only a matter of time.

"What was that?" Lara demanded of the woman.

"Salt," she replied simply.

Lara nodded. It explained a lot, and meant that the skull should definitely work. If it was here. If she could find it. "You have any more?"

A grimace. "Not nearly enough."

Hicks was trying to tend to Rankin's wounds – he was still conscious and breathing, although he appeared to have gone into shock. Simon and Lomax, meanwhile, appeared to on the verge of squaring off against one another despite what was happening around them. ". . . fucking great idea, leading us into a dead end. She promise she'd blow you or something. . . ?" Travis simply stood, staring at the doors, sweating.

Lara turned as a shadow passed over her. Emil. They stared at each other. He started to say something but a resounding crash from the doors cut him off. In the end he settled for: "What are you looking for?"

Business, Lara reminded herself. Urgent business. "A crystal skull. Perfectly clear and about so big."

Emil nodded. "I've seen it. Over here."

That was it okay. Stolen from her by Pierre Du Pont in Brazil. Not exactly happy memories.

She put her elbow through the display case, immediately setting off a strident alarm. Practice makes perfect. She didn't suffer so much as a single cut from the broken glass, scooping the thing from its setting. It was life sized – albeit from a smaller boned race than 20th century Europeans – and surprisingly heavy in her grasp.

"What is it?"

"Among other things? A shamanic spirit scare, used for centuries by a particular tribe of Amazonian Indians, although it was made by a far earlier civilisation. Should work like a more powerful version of your friend's salt." 

It was one of a number of similar skulls that had been found all across South and Central America, most famously – or infamously – the Mitchell-Hedges skull. The general consensus among reputable archaeologists was that they were modern hoaxes, given the fact they'd been found scattered across many unconnected civilisations, none of which had possessed the required technology to carve crystal with such precision. If they'd seen what Lara had though, they might have entertained doubts.

"Should?"

"Well I've never actually tried it you understand." It felt disconcertingly cold and lifeless in her hands, and internally her confidence that it would actually do anything was bleeding away rapidly. "Now seems as good a time as any though, don't you think?"

Emil looked from it to her face, appearing slightly sick. He merely nodded though.

The _Vaatusu_ made another violent effort to get through the door, shrieking and cackling with palpable frustration at being held back from their prey so long. Smoke began to pour through copiously along with a few licks of flame. Next blow would probably do it.

"Looks like time's run out. If this doesn't work – well it's been nice knowing you."

Stomach churning, legs wanting to shake if she let them, she turned away from him and moved quickly to position herself in front of the battered door. _Witless idiot. This is your worst idea ever._ She stared at the skull in her hands and tried to concentrate on it. _You're laughing at me, aren't you?_

"What the hell are you doing?"

Lara didn't look up at Lomax's voice. "One out of saving your as ass or dying horribly. Couldn't say which." She was vaguely aware of Emil moving to intercept him before he could grab hold of her shoulder, the two men rounding on each other. "You gentlemen might like to get back somewhere on the other side of the room. Unless you're particularly attached to the idea of becoming a tasty snack."

She didn't know if they did as instructed or not, a strange sense of fatalistic calm coming over her now that she had decided what she was going to do and there was no backing out. The gibbering terror that had been threatening to swallow her dissipated along with the indecision.

With the calm, her mind seemed to sink inside the crystal skull, snared by the glittering fragments of refracted light in its depths, drawn down and down in an ever increasing rush. Suddenly it was as if she was gazing out of its cold eye sockets rather than her own.

* * *

Strangeness. Floating.

The evening sunlight streaming through the windows appeared unreally intense and vivid, and all the people – taking heed of her advice and getting away from the door, seemingly in slow motion – had acquired ever-shifting rainbow auras. In the corner of the room she could now see the lurking _Vaatusu_ – a hideously alien thing that resembled a nest of mating snakes, writhing constantly. It looked burnt – covered in dead grey patches where the salt had struck it.

She dragged her attention back to the door, just as it exploded inwards. A storm of shrapnel flew all around her, though to her adjusted perception it appeared to float as gently as feathers. Miraculously not even the smallest of fragments touched her, pushed aside by some invisible force.

A massive wall of flame and debris surged forwards, seeking to burn and flay and dismember whatever lay in its path.

Now Lara could see the things that drove the maelstrom – more creatures like the crippled thing lurking in the corner, moving so fast that even now they were a blur, stirring the air and everything within it into frenzy. There were scores of them, and they all shrieked as one at the sight of her, plunging towards her too fast to avoid even if her mind wasn't currently dislocated from her body.

She cried out in shock.

But it wasn't her body they went for. It was the part of her that currently resided in the skull. She saw them – hideous, twisting ravenously hungry snake-like tangles – plunging down towards her through the clear crystal, searching her out.

Realisation struck. She'd been completely wrong about the purpose of the skull; completely mistaken. It wasn't intended to scare spirits off. It was intended to lure them and then trap them, the wielder's own spirit providing the bait.

_She had to get back into her body_.

A surge of panic struck. She didn't know how. Just thinking about it – willing it so – didn't have any perceptible effect.

The _Vaatusu_ were horribly close now, only a few seconds away from getting hold of her. Proximity amplified their hideousness. Lara turned and ran – or whatever the equivalent was inside the confines of the skull. Their howls echoed close behind.

There was nowhere to run to – just spiralling circles, ever deeper into the crystal's heart, exactly the opposite way to which she wanted to go. But the only other choice was back, towards her pursuers, and that was no choice at all

The refracted light inside the crystal blazed around her, getting brighter and brighter as she went – hotter and hotter until the temperature was unbearable – scorching. This wasn't simply designed to trap spirits. It was designed to destroy them. Her with it, if she couldn't manage to escape.

She tried to jump up, into her body. It was as futile as attempting to jump onto the moon.

Suddenly there was nowhere left to run to. The light around her had become so hot and brilliant that it was like a solid wall. One more step would consume her.

In desperation she span round, to face the oncoming doom.

She managed to dodge the first of the _Vaatusu_, ducking beneath its cackling, headlong rush. It shot past her, screaming as it went, straight into the heart of the light where it burnt up into nothingness. The second of them managed to snag hold of her leg with its snake-like, tentacled body.

Lara screamed in agony. Its touch was like acid, the pain as bad as anything she'd ever experienced. Somehow she managed to break its grip on her, kicking it away into the light where its brother had gone. It screamed as it disintegrated.

The others approached more cautiously, circling and cackling to themselves, gathering ready to rush her in one great mass. Behind her the heat and light intensified, burning painfully.

_Look at it differently. Look within._

The voice came from somewhere outside of her, she was sure, although superficially it sounded like her own. She tried to cling on it – to do what it said – the pain becoming excruciating as the light threatened to burn her up.

Abruptly her vision swam and changed. She was seeing in more than the usual four dimensions. Everything became startlingly clear and obvious. There was a shining silver cord connecting her to her body that had previously been invisible. All she had to do was go up it. . .

The blazing light and the crystal skull dwindled away beneath her rapidly, just with the thought. She heard the _Vaatusu_ screaming distantly as the blazing light consumed them. _Free_. . . Exhilaration filled her as she soared ever upwards, away. . .

_Ahhhhhh! _

It was a moment before she realised that the scream was her own. One of the Vaatusu – charred black – had managed to hook onto her already injured leg and was in the process of ripping into her. She tried to pull it off – to drop it back into the blazing light way beneath – but it clung on tenaciously, biting into her repeatedly.

One of its extremities caught the silver cord, nearly severing it. A shock passed through her and the upward progress halted jarringly, leaving her teetering. _If the cord was severed_. . . 

Gritting her teeth – or what passed for them – she grasped hold of the flailing Vaatusu in both hands and yanked at it. The pain was so bad she temporarily blacked out.

When awareness returned she was soaring upwards again and the Vaatusu was a dwindling speck falling back into the light. . .

* * *

She returned to her body with a jolt, gasping like someone surfacing from extremely cold water. 

_You owe me._

Her left leg was completely numb and it buckled beneath her, dropping her to her knees on the floor. The skull – so hot that it was all she could bear to hold it – slipped between her fingers and bounced where it hit the floor, spinning away from her. 

The light within it slowly faded.

Shudders wracked her shoulders. Everyone was staring at her, trying vainly to comprehend what had just happened.

Something cackled. More _Vaatusu_. She hadn't gotten them all.

With something very close to despair she watched the first couple shoot past her, straight at the others. It was a moment before she realised that she was still able to see the hideous things, even without the skull.

Before they got more than halfway the woman calmly threw pinches of salt straight at them, better prepared this time. They span away insanely, tearing at themselves and shrieking in high-pitched agony.

Lara didn't have time to see the rest. The remaining few – five or six stragglers – flew straight at her, caterwauling. Although they were no longer the huge, raging maelstrom of before they still carried enough flame and shards of glass with them to prove fatal.

She managed to duck beneath the initial onslaught, feeling their heat pass close over her back, several fragments of glass nicking her skin. Then she was springing to her feet, forcing herself to run, despite the fact that one leg was still not intent on co-operating.

The corridor beyond the shattered doorway was a scene of utter devastation, the walls scarred and scorched black, still smouldering in several places. Every inch of carpet had been torn up from the floor, shredded and burnt, the furniture reduced to smoking wreckage.

Lara hurdled a pile of debris, nearly stumbling as her leg threatened to give out, pins and needles prickling up and down its length. The _Vaatusu_ trailed scant feet behind.

She dove through another door, but they were already through it before she could slam it between them. Her breath came in ragged gasps.

_The kitchen._ More salt there.

She hurdled the arm of a sofa, then ducked instinctively. Knife blades of glass that would have come close to decapitating her instead merely severed a few strands of hair. A cry, and her weakened leg gave out again as a rug slipped beneath her.

Lara managed to turn the fall into a dive and roll, sliding beneath the cover of a coffee table an instant before the _Vaatusu_ slammed down on top of her. A splintered length of wood pierced the table's top, coming within millimetres of staking her like a vampire.

Straining with the effort, she flung the coffee table off her and into the _Vaatusu's_ faces, scrambling back to her feet in the couple of seconds it bought her and resuming her headlong flight.

She managed to get to the next door with enough to spare that she could fling it shut in the _Vaatusu's_ faces. Too hard unfortunately. Instead of catching, it simply bounced open again, leaving them free to pursue unimpeded.

They closed steadily. Lara toppled a drinks trolley in front of them, buying a few more metres as they paused to tear it apart and use its shattered raw materials to strengthen themselves. 

To one side of her a door opened and someone stepped into the corridor, screaming as he saw what was bearing down on him. The Vaatusu ignored him though, shooting straight past and inflicting only superficial cuts and burns. They were being driven now. Only she would do.

Lara could feel her lungs starting to burn, a painful stitch forming in her side. Some of the proper feeling was starting to return to her leg, but unfortunately this was mostly outright agony.

Somehow she was still ahead of them and running when the kitchen door came in sight. Screaming with effort, she reached it with a yard and a half to spare.

This time she did manage to get it closed between them, falling back against it and panting raggedly for breath as she slid down it.

The door jolted violently against her back, shuddering in its frame, but the _Vaatusu_ no longer had the strength of numbers to simply blast it aside in a single blow. It wouldn't hold for long though.

Groaning aloud, Lara forced herself to her feet, ignoring the tiny part of her that wanted simply to remain where she was and give in.

_Salt._ You'd think it would be easy to find in a kitchen, but it didn't leap out at her. She threw open the nearest cupboard, but it contained only various cleaning materials and bottles of bleach. The next one she tried was no better. 

The _Vaatusu_ slammed into the door again, making her jump. Time was running out.

Her eyes alighted on the rows of ovens and a different idea occurred. She moved as quickly as she could down the row of cookers, pausing briefly at each – turning the gas on. Very soon there was a soft hissing sound coming from all sides, invisible fumes filling the air around her.

Again the door shuddered in its frame, this time accompanied by a sharp cracking sound as the topmost hinge buckled and gave way. _Definitely time to get out of here. Now._

Lara sprinted as fast as she could towards the door leading outside. The _Vaatusu_ threw themselves at the door yet again, and this time it was ripped from its hinges entirely, exploding inwards.

The backdoor was still a few yards in front of Lara. She reached for the handle in desperation. Behind her she heard the Vaatusu let out a shrieking howl of glee, shooting straight across the kitchen towards her. . .

Her hand closed on the door handle. She yanked it down. Flames still burning in swirling patterns around them, the Vaatusu passed across the top of the ovens, which were still spewing gas. A spark caught. A fireball ignited, expanding with shocking speed. . .

The door came open. Lara dove headlong through it, onto the grass.

Half a second later a huge gout of fire spurted after her, roaring like dragon's breath. All of the kitchen's windows blew out in a single great thunderclap, more flames spurting out, into the late evening air. 

A shockwave of hot wind rolled over Lara, picking her up and throwing her as if she was nothing more substantial than a rag-doll. She hit the ground again nearly ten metres away, all the breath blasted from her body. 

It took her a moment to realise that her uniform was burning. Then she started rolling frantically in the grass in an effort to put it out. 

Behind her a few flames still flickered in the vacant kitchen windows, although most of the blaze had been blown right out. Everything was suddenly strangely peaceful, and of the _Vaatusu_ there was no more sign.

* * *

For what seemed like a long time after she got the flames out Lara just lay where she was in the grass, unable to make herself move. Every inch of her seemed to ache in one way or another, but, slightly amazingly, nothing appeared to be broken or otherwise seriously injured.

_Good job I'm not a cat_, she reflected. _Otherwise I'd have run out of lives years ago_.

Eventually she became aware of something digging painfully into her back. Her pack. She rolled over, slipping it off, and taking the figurine out. No more damage despite everything that had happened she noted without any great surprise.

_Lot of trouble you've caused, I hope you realise. Bitch._

She remembered the words she'd heard inside the crystal skull. The ones that had shown her how to get out again. And, more ominously: _You owe me_.

_Was that you, I wonder?_ No response was forthcoming of course. To all evidence it was a lifeless metal figurine.

_Well, if you think I owe you anything you've got another thing coming. I call us even. I helped keep you out of the One-Legged Man's clutches. You helped me out of the skull. A favour for a favour. You hear me?_

She half got the impression that something did indeed hear her and was far from pleased about it. _Bloody hell, Lara dear. You're starting to crack up. Too many blows to the head or something_. She put the figurine away again.

Someone emerged from the kitchen door, surrounded by billowing smoke.

Gritting her teeth, Lara forced herself first up onto her knees, then – painfully – to her feet. Right now the last thing she felt able to face was another confrontation with Lomax and friends. _If they still want you they can damn well have you. Hear me you bitch?_

It wasn't Lomax. It was Emil.

The relief was such that she almost collapsed back onto the grass again. Sense of embarrassment was the primary thing keeping her upright.

"Lara. . ."

"Emil. . ."

They both started speaking at once and stopped again just as quickly. Lara found herself staring at him. Thirty hours give or take. That was how long it had been since she'd last seen him. It seemed to have encompassed several lifetimes. The air around her crackled – left over energies from the One-Legged Man's magic or the _Vaatusu's_ destruction.

"Part of me wants to ask what on earth you're doing here. And why you're dressed like that. . ."

"That part of you should probably be quiet just now then, don't you think?" Lara took a couple of steps closer to him, tilting her head slightly to one side to get rid of a few loose stands of hair that had fallen across her eyes. She could feel her breath coming too fast, and her heart rate quickening, and a few other fairly self-explanatory symptoms too.

_Naughty girl. Whatever would your mother think_. _Ah, bollocks. Perfectly natural reaction to a near death et cetera, et cetera. _And. _If you don't have something you can regret in the morning then you're doing something wrong_.

He started to say something again, apparently becoming uncomfortable with the prolonged silence. Lara cut him off, pulling his head down towards her and kissing him fiercely on the lips. Momentarily he seemed taken aback, not immediately responding. He quickly got the idea though and proved himself to be rather good at this particular game.

There are several activities where the flow of time seems to take on peculiar properties. Lara couldn't have said how long they remained like that, locked together at the mouth, bodies pressed together, simply holding each other. Eventually though, they surfaced briefly for air.

"Damn. I think I must have died somewhere back there."

"Pardon?" Her head felt blurred and slow.

"Well how else do you explain it? I mean, one of my fantasies coming true. You wearing. . ." He looked her up and down, noting the numerous tears and missing buttons. ". . . Well almost wearing a nurse's uniform. This has got to be heaven, don't you think?"

She raised one eyebrow. "Do you want me to hit you?"

"Hah! See? Conclusive proof."

She settled for just kissing him again, this time allowing her hands to do some additional exploration. 

Eventually somebody cleared their throat from close by. Emil pulled back, startled, looking quickly around. Much to Lara's frustration: she was feeling much more inclined to ignore the extremely rude interruption, pull him down in the grass and let things take there natural course. After a moment her head cleared somewhat and she looked around at the noise's source.

The woman who'd been with Emil earlier. The extremely competent one who'd just happened to be carrying salt. Definitely very attractive, now that she had the time to look at her more closely. She looked back at Emil, raising an eyebrow enquiringly. "Just who is that exactly?"

Emil sighed. "You mean Six-of-Nine there? My newly acquired and hopefully very temporary partner."

"Six-of-Nine?" Lara echoed, completely failing to get the reference.

Another sigh. "You know something Lara? You really need to stay in more."

_Well, that's that then_. Lara took a couple of paces back from him, looking around to see if anyone else was likely to show up. Bad tempered mercenaries, security guards, police, the One-Legged Man. Whoever. 

"You know what? I think we should get the hell out of here."

* * *

A burning line of pain.

It penetrated through the void of seemingly infinite darkness and eventually reached a tiny speck of light floating there. That speck of light thought of itself, in a vague sort of way, as Hsu Yi Wen. The pain was just enough to pierce the floating, dreamlike layers that held her in their embrace and reach the core of her consciousness deep inside, stirring her slowly but inexorably towards wakefulness.

_What? Where?_ Panic hit. One moment it was as if she was in the softest, warmest bed imaginable. The next she was being pitched naked into an ice-cold river. All of the memories of what had happened to her recently came back to her in a single, awful moment that threatened to destroy her sanity.

Terrible, invisible things that she could somehow see; worm-like monstrosities with churning lamprey mouths filled with razor fangs. Burning daggers of blazing hot metal, exploding and piercing her flesh. . . _The Hrizu. The Erinyes. Megaera_.

Suddenly the void around her dissipated, and she realised with a start that she was inside her own body. Her own head. Albeit, buried deeply. 

And she could see.

She was walking along a street, the sun setting with the sky a glory of reds and oranges above rows of houses and office blocks. Cars sped past beside her, their noise and stink stronger and more intense than she had experienced before – alien and intimidating.

There were people around her too, though they shied away when her gaze touched them, veering wide around her, or slowing down or speeding up to stay out of her path. They seemed just as strange and alien as the cars.

_South London_. Something about the scene told her she was in South London. A spike of fear stabbed through her.

_Charron_. 

She had stolen from him and betrayed him. She shouldn't be out like this, in front of so many witnesses and attracting so much attention. The grinning devil would find her. She should be miles, and preferably countries, away from here by now.

The pain that had woken her was coming from her cheek. She could feel blood running down the side of her face, warm and sticky. _Which probably accounts for all the stares I getting. Not that I notice anyone offering to help._

She tried to raise her hand to touch the wound, unable to recall how she had received it.

Her hand remained down by her side; didn't so much as twitch. Only then did it truly hit home that she no longer had any control over her body.

The panic returned full force. She freaked out, trying desperately to get her body to respond in some way, however small – a finger to twitch, an eyelid to blink, anything. Suddenly it felt like she was suffocating – paralysed; weighed down by heavy chains; buried alive. For a time both sanity and awareness fled.

It was considerably later when she came back to herself, although even then panic still gibbered around the edges, threatening to draw her back into its embrace. Shadows were drawing in around her. She was still outside, walking the streets, though these were different streets than before.

Finally she spotted that she wasn't alone; that there was someone else inside her head with her, keeping her in the background.

It was a huge thing of blazing light and metal, barbed wings of brass eagle feathers and razor talons. It was feminine, yet feminine in a way that was hard-edged and terrifying. Something of remorseless purpose and cruelty.

Hsu Yi screamed at it – desperately strove to attract its attention. If the thought of doing so terrified her, the thought of remaining trapped and forgotten inside her own body scared her even more.

Eventually it deigned to notice her. She could feel amusement and contempt in equal measure as cold copper eyes turned her way – quailed beneath their gaze

_So the little thief awakens. Better that you had remained asleep._

_Give me back my body!_

More amusement, cold and inhuman. _You have not forgotten the bargain we made so soon, have you, thief?_

A memory of holding the figurine she had stolen from Lara Croft out as Charron's _Hrizu_ bore down on top of her. Of agreeing to anything if the voice inside her head would save her.

_I agreed to set you free. Nothing else!_

_Indeed. And this is the form our agreement takes._

The panic threatened to rise up again, those eyes burning right through her. _You said nothing of stealing my body!_

Tinkling metallic laughter. _Stealing the body of a thief. Ironic, do you not think? The truest form of justice, would you not agree?_

Hsu Yi fought against renewed panic. _You tricked me! I would not have agreed to this._

_You would have agreed to anything to save yourself. Your words said so. Your heart said so. Your very soul said so. Do not mince niceties with me, my thief. And if I tricked you, have you not tricked a thousand others before_?

Megaera – this blazing thing of light and brass – turned her gaze away, and that seemed to be that for conversation. She did, at length, add one further thing however. _It will not be forever thief. Even I am not forever._

They – she – were turning into a side street.

_The cut on my face. You need to take care of the cut on my face!_

Hsu Yi could feel Megaera's contempt. _A scratch. An irrelevance. It does nothing to impair even your fragile flesh, thief._

_It hurts_. 

That was the truth. She might have been nothing more than a passenger in her own body, unable to control its actions, but she could still feel its every ache and pain. The stinging from the cut. The bone deep weariness of not having slept four thirty something hours. The aching of muscles strained in her desperate flight from the _Hrizu_, and not allowed to rest since.

_You need to stop and rest. To clean up the cut. Otherwise my body is going to fall apart._

_There are things I must do. I cannot be constrained by the weakness of your flesh._

_Things you must do?_ Hsu Yi felt a knife of fear mixed with anger. Megaera was going to work her body to death simply because she didn't understand its limitations. And trapped inside hear, she would get to experience it all first hand, able to do nothing about it. She let out a long keening shriek.

_Be silent thief. My patience wears thin. I could simply extinguish the spark of you that remains if I choose._

_You are an idiot! You may be a god but you're also an absolute idiot! If you keep on like this you will destroy your body. I would laugh at you if it wasn't for the fact that you are going to take me with you._

Have a care thief. I am not used to such insolence.

Hsu Yi sucked in a deep breath, or at least did the mental equivalent. She knew she was treading very dangerous ground here, but she also had to get her point across. _Then you had best get used to it quickly. Idiots tend to attract a lot of insolence._

She sensed a change in her _guest's_ mood, from borderline anger to that icy amusement she'd felt earlier – went on quickly before her nerve failed. _First off you have to get that cut cleaned and bandaged. Otherwise it will become infected_. And heaven knows what kind of scar it will leave. _How did you get it in any case?_

An image of a face that was all too familiar. As she saw it she got a strange sense of _something_ from Megaera. Something she couldn't quite place.

_You know that creature, thief?_

_Creature?_

It may look human on the outside, thief, but it is not. It is a qlippoth. A shell. A created thing.

Claudia Dumane. Hsu Yi felt herself shudder. _She is Charron's. . ._ _creature. The one who sought to possess you._

_Yes. The Magician. He who has taken my sister. The one you think of as the grinning devil. I will show him that we are not be trifled with._

Hsu Yi felt fear clench tight. _No!_

_No, little thief?_ Thinly veiling anger.

_You do not even understand the limitations of my body._ The thought of seeking out Charron voluntarily. . . _You don't know how the world works anymore_.

_I am blood of Uranus, the first father. I fear no mortal._

Hsu Yi kept quiet, not wanting to further provoke the fury that she could feel thrumming in Megaera's words.

Megaera surprised her however. _Nevertheless, you are correct. In part. You will teach me of my body, and this strange, repellent world. And then I will teach this Magician to regret his trespasses_.

She kept quiet, sensing that this was the very best she was going to get, and not wanting to risk even this much

They were now standing outside the front of a shop, gloom thick around them. Hsu Yi could see her reflection in the glass, pale and ghostly. The line of blood running down her cheek looked almost black.

_First take care of the cut. It attracts attention. It makes people stare._

She pushed the shop's door open and stepped inside. Why the shop was unlocked at this hour, with no light on inside Hsu Yi couldn't even begin to guess.

_It is only right that people stare at my passage and move aside._ They moved silently forward between high shelves laden down with jumbled clutter.

_It causes problems to be noticed in this world. It is better for you to remain silent and unseen. That way Charron will be unprepared when you come for him._ What were they doing here? Where was here? She noted boxes full of crystals and rows of candles.

_The Magician will know fear._

Someone stepped out in front of them. They carried what looked like an antique oil-lamp, the light dazzling as Megaera looked directly at it. 

A few seconds later, as her vision adjusted, she noted a pallid, moon-like face filled with worry and a suggestion of fear. It was surrounded by long, smoky tresses of a colour that Hsu Yi couldn't discern. 

A woman. 

For a moment Hsu Yi thought she was wearing a long, flowing Victorian style nightgown, and along with the oil lamp, had the uncomfortable impression that they'd somehow stepped backwards through time. Then, as the woman stepped closer, she saw it was merely a shapeless dress, designed in part to conceal the woman's plumply rounded figure.

"K-Kindly One? Is that you?" The woman's voice was tremulous and fearful.

"It is I, priestess." Hsu Yi felt a sense of deep amusement from her unwanted _guest_. _Kindly One?_ There surely couldn't be a less appropriate name for her.

"Y-You're face. It is hurt."

"An irrelevance, of no import." The words were calmly dismissive, but Hsu Yi could feel the flash of profound, inhuman anger. And was that fear? It was gone too quickly to be sure, but Hsu Yi felt herself jolt.

After a couple of seconds' pause Megaera added. "Although I would be grateful if you could take care of it for me." This time that coldly alien amusement was directed inwardly.

"R-right away, kindly one." The plump woman turned and bustled hastily away, towards the shop's back room.

They followed, footsteps slow and silent.

"You know how to draw circles of warding and protection and misdirection priestess?" Megaera's words meant next to nothing to Hsu Yi.

Apparently the woman understood well enough though. "Y-yes, Kindly one."

"And to imbue them?"

"Y-yes. Although my strength is not great."

"Then draw them, after you have attended to my wound. They will keep unwanted attention from being attracted our way."

The woman produced a first aid kit from a cabinet, having to stretch up on tiptoe to reach it. She turned around, indicating a chair. "I-If you take a seat K-kindly One. I-It would be easier.

Megaera folded her stolen body into the indicated chair with cat-like grace. Hsu Yi could feel more of that icy cold amusement.

The woman's round face loomed over her as she strove to get a better look at the injury she was treating.

_And while you're at it, you need to get yourself a wash_. _Hell_. Hsu Yi finally realised that the unpleasant body odour she could smell was originating from herself, sweat dried on from this morning's exertions and beginning to smell distinctly ripe. _No wonder people were so eager to get out of your – my – way. This is disgusting._

As the woman cleaned, disinfected, and applied a dressing to the cut on her face, it didn't occur to either of the body's occupants to wonder what Claudia Dumane had been doing inflicting it in the first place.

* * *

Lara Croft let out a sigh of contentment, lifting one leg out of the steaming hot bath water, toe pointing toward the ceiling, to inspect it.

As soapy water sluiced down it her fingers traced a line of bruises marring the normally smoothly tanned skin. They were already turning yellow and no more than mildly painful – really, an inconsequence. Beyond the bruises were a series of fine, shallow cuts that stung as her fingertips brushed across them. Again she ignored the discomfort. To tell the truth they were no worse than scratches she'd suffered countless times moving bare-legged through thick undergrowth.

She twisted her leg round slightly to one side, looking at the raw two-inch long burn down the side of her sleekly muscled calf. That was more unpleasant, but still nothing more than a trifle. All things considered, she concluded, she'd gotten off pretty lightly. There were about a score of other injuries of the same sort over the rest of her body – bruises, cuts and abrasions – but she'd suffered worse simply training.

A miracle of a sort.

One day those miracles were going to run out.

Another sigh as she lowered her leg back beneath the steaming surface of the water. Her long chestnut brown hair floated all around her, for once unbound, darkened with moisture. No need to dwell on that just now though. She did enough of that just recently in the quiet moments she had.

_I'm not going to let fear stop me doing what I love._

This is what you love?

Bah, humbug. Stop being contrary.

She allowed herself to slide slowly down until the water closed over her head, staying like that for about a minute before she finally surfaced again with water streaming down her face.

She thought about Emil. 

Part of her wished that they hadn't been interrupted. Another part was profoundly glad they had.

_It won't work out you know. It never does._

Whenever she'd gotten into relationships in the past there had always come a time when she was forced to make a choice. A point when her partner wanted more of her than she was willing to give. Hard, she acknowledged, to watch somebody you loved disappear for months at time, without knowing when, or even if they were going to return. Something she wondered whether she would be able to accept in someone else, so she could hardly expect someone else to accept the same thing in her.

But she couldn't change what she was. She hadn't for her father, and she wasn't going to for anybody else either.

And when it came right down to it she'd always been rather resentful of the perception that you had to have a partner for your life to be considered a success. If you didn't you were a loser, no matter what your other achievements, or how happy you were within yourself.

_Bah, humbug again. Never was a bloody romantic anyway._

A couple of days – or weeks – of simple, uncomplicated sex wouldn't have been so bad though. Just a pity really that there was no such thing as simple, uncomplicated sex. You couldn't just stop and expect things to go back to how they were, before. 

No, better it had happened like this, all in all.

May'be. Probably. Perhaps.

_Why do people have to be so damned difficult?_

She allowed herself to simply lie there and soak for a time, letting her thoughts drift. Eventually the water started to cool, and with a reluctant sigh, she forced herself to stand up, muscles languid and sleepy, the aches and pains no more than distant background memories. 

For a short while, she simply stood stretching as water dripped from her. Then she padded slowly across the bathroom, leaving a line of wet footprints on the tile floor. She towelled most of the excess moisture off before pulling on a long robe of midnight blue silk, letting her still damp hair hang loose, most of the way down her back.

Finally she picked up the pistol-grip shotgun that was propped beside the bath and slung it casually over her shoulder. After this morning she was taking no chances. If anyone tried to take her unawares again they were going to be in for an unpleasant surprise.

She'd arrived home a couple of hours ago, dropped off by Emil, along with the disassembled parts of her motorcycle, which were now sitting rather forlornly on her drive. They'd seen the mercenaries get out maybe a minute or two ahead of them, driving at high speed in two cars. They didn't seem particularly interested in chasing after the figurine she carried anymore. One thing to be thankful for at least. Of the One-Legged Man there had been no sign.

For a wonder she'd found that Winston had actually obeyed her and wasn't home when she'd arrived. She'd guessed he'd been here most of the afternoon though. Workmen had quite obviously already begun cleaning up some of the shambles that had been left behind, hanging a temporary front door and boarding over the shot-out windows. There was no way Winston would have allowed them the run of the place unsupervised.

She paused in her bedroom to pick up her backpack and its contents – paranoid probably, but just for the moment she wasn't inclined to let it too far out of her sight – then headed downstairs. She was feeling a bit peckish to say the least, and even though her own culinary skills tended towards the survival-oriented she should be able to rustle up beans on toast or something similar.

At the bottom of the stairs she froze.

There was a light on in the living room. Her relaxed mood vanished abruptly. 

Had she switched it on herself? She swung the shotgun down from her shoulder and held it ready. She couldn't remember doing so. Neither could she categorically remember not doing so. It hadn't been on when she'd got home, that she knew for sure.

Rising up onto the balls of her bare feet, she advanced down the bullet-riddled passageway in absolute silence.

It was just the one light, she saw, the edges of the room still laden with heavy shadow. No one lurking in it though, as far as she could make out. There was no one sitting on the sofa either. Her advance slowed, her gaze swinging round equally slowly to ensure she didn't miss the slightest sign of anything.

Her gaze hit the chair. She stopped, controlling her breathing with an effort. There was someone sitting in it, their back turned to her and the top of their head just visible over its high back. She sighted along the shotgun at that target.

"Hello Lara. I've been waiting for you."

_Charron_. Tell the truth, she'd known inside as soon as she'd seen the light was on. Part of her screamed to pull the trigger, but something else held her back.

"Not too long I trust?" She moved slowly around, keeping the shotgun trained on the top of his head at all times.

"Oh no, not at all. I'm a patient man. Nice place you have here. Although someone seems to have rather messed it up of late."

"I've been experiencing problems with vermin."

He chuckled. She was standing in front of him now, able to see his face. He was grinning. Somehow that wasn't much of a surprise. His eyes were again hidden by dark glasses and his walking stick rested between his knees. "I sympathise."

"I'm sure you do. Don't you need to be invited in or something?"

Charron's grin broadened. In the lamplight his teeth appeared to shine, far, far too white. "I think you've got me confused with vampires."

"As opposed to leeches. Yes, silly me."

That smile didn't waver. It was infuriating. Lara was half tempted to squeeze the trigger just so she could see it disappear in a spray of blood and bone and brain tissue. "Stupid of me to expect good manners from an American I suppose."

Another chuckle, filled with humour and almost musical. "You wound me Lara." 

__

If you're not careful, yes.

"Did we not have a dinner date arranged?"

Lara recalled the words '_Hand her over, and perhaps I could tell you later. Over dinner?'_ An involuntary shiver passed up her spine. She hid it with a contemptuous sniff. "Someone needs to explain to you exactly what constitutes a dinner date."

"How could I pass up the opportunity to dine with such a magnificent woman as yourself."

Lara could feel worms of fear crawling through her gut. She had the gun here. She should be the one in charge. She wasn't though. The situation reminded her of a mouse being played with by a well-fed and self-satisfied tomcat.

"I'm afraid I've let all my staff have the evening off. All I can offer you is beans-on-toast, which simply wouldn't do for a man of your _refined_ tastes I'm sure."

"Then perhaps we could just have a cosy little chat. To clear up a few misunderstandings that might have developed between us."

Lara stared at him. She was unable to read anything from his face, which still held that goddamned infuriating smile. The glasses hid everything else and she half-wished he would take them off – although there was a tiny lurking irrational fear of what she would see underneath them. Her own expression abruptly hardened.

"How about you get the hell out of here while you still can?" Lara gestured sharply with the shotgun barrel. "There's been more than enough bloodshed today already, and I'd hate to have to add to it."

"Lara, Lara." He spread his hands. "Is this really necessary?"

"Define necessary." Tone and expression were both grim. She shifted the barrel of the shotgun down so that it pointed at his good left leg around the kneecap. "I've always preferred symmetry myself. What do you think? Though of course it would mean you being known as the No-Legged Man from now on. Doesn't really have the same ring to it does it?"

He sighed, it seemed a fraction sadly. "Threats and posturing are always so tiresome. Very well, do whatever you think you must Lara. I should warn you that your gun doesn't work."

Absolutely calm and unruffled. Lara felt her heart thud, and she remembered how her stolen pistol had exploded earlier, almost managing to take her hand off. Her eyes met the dark, ovoid lenses of his sunglasses. No that had been different. The air had been thrumming with. . . for want of a better word, power. Now was completely different – everything calm and still.

"Really? I assure you that I keep my guns in excellent working order."

"I'm sure you do." 

If he was bluffing he was doing a damned good job of it, his expression completely unmoved and his breathing perfectly steady. Even as she tightened her finger on the trigger, her lips forming a wide, slanted smile that didn't go anywhere beneath the surface, he kept totally calm.

"Lets see shall we?" She pulled the trigger.

A bland click, nothing more. She knew with absolute certainty it was loaded.

Inside her heart was pounding, although she managed to keep everything unperturbed to the external view, merely raising one eyebrow a fraction. She held back from trying the shotgun again. Next time might herald something considerably more drastic than a mere click. "Well, it seems you are correct Mr. Charron. How odd. I wonder, would my shotgun equally cease to function if I tried to batter your skull in with it?"

This time there was a fractional twitch to his expression, quickly smoothed over. "Now that really would be uncivilised." He gestured to the chair opposite his. "If we're going to talk perhaps you would be more comfortable if you sat down?"

Lara didn't take her eyes off him, carefully and unhurriedly lowering the shotgun down onto the tabletop. It was all she could do to keep herself from throwing it away from her across the room. It felt like she was holding a poisonous snake that was itching to turn in her grasp and bite her. "I'm hardly dressed for company I'm afraid. Perhaps if you'd excuse me a moment while I slip into. . . well, something."

"I'm sure you look absolutely perfect just the way you are." In anyone else that voice would have been taken as smooth geniality – perhaps even slightly flirtatious. Lara had heard enough of it to recognise the undertone of command and menace. "And I think what we've got to discuss is really rather pressing. Don't you?"

For a moment Lara simply stood there, looking at him with her arms folded across her chest. Inwardly she was striving to keep her breathing under control, reminding herself that she was perfectly capable of snapping this man's neck like a twig if she so chose. It didn't help much.

At length she lowered herself into the chair, arranging her robe almost primly so that it covered her legs. She placed her pack – the figurine it contained – carefully on the floor beside her. "Okay then, talk. The sooner you're gone from here the better."

He didn't seem perturbed by her lack of enthusiasm. "Have you really looked at the state of the world recently Lara? I mean really, with an objective, dispassionate eye?"

"What?" Lara jolted. Just about the last thing she'd honestly expected.

"No? A pity. And I guess that's part of the problem, isn't it. Not enough people – like you – who could actually make some kind of difference, bother to even look."

"Well I'm sorry I'm sure. I'll try to do better in future." _Christ._ She wished again that she could see his eyes and gain some inkling of whether he was actually trying to be serious here.

"Oh, I'm serious Lara. Deadly. This isn't some kind of game." Seeming to read her mind.

She suppressed a shudder. It wasn't cold. "I gather you do look at the state of the world Mr. Charron. And I get the impression you're going to tell me what you see." _Whether I want to hear it or not._

"Oh, don't worry. I'm not going to give you a sermon Lara. Although this really isn't something to be flippant about."

Lara's expression twisted. "Pardon me if this sounds cynical, but I've already seen that you're a thief and a murderer – a typical gangster, like too many I've seen before. This sudden bout of hang-wringing hardly comes across as convincing."

"A murderer?"

"What else would you call burning to death a stroke victim in his own bed?"

"A stroke victim. And an arms dealer who has been responsible for the deaths of thousands, directly or indirectly. Murder, or maybe justice. I guess it's a matter of interpretation."

"Was Langer – your mercenary hireling – another matter of interpretation?"

"No, that was self defence."

"And the security guards unfortunate collateral damage? Yes. It's always easy to come up with excuses."

He smiled at her again. "Lara, I feel rather like the kettle, sitting here and being called black by the pot. How many men and women have you killed? Can you even count? I'm sure you have a good excuse for all of them too. Like me."

She simply stared back at him as he continued.

"And a thief? To be called that by you – a veritable Queen of thieves. I don't know whether to take it as a complement or an insult. Yes, I suppose by any definition, I am a thief. But unlike some I seek to use what I steal for good, rather than hoarding my takings in a darkened room." He let out a breath. "But I said I was not here to preach, and here I am, threatening to prove myself a liar. Let us agree we speak as equals. Thieves and murderers both."

"Fair enough," Lara bit out. "Get on with it." She wanted him gone more than ever.

"So, back to the state of the world. It is frightening if you let yourself dwell on it. Frightening to see how close we are to destroying ourselves."

"We've muddled through for the past two-million years. I'm sure there's no need to get melodramatic about it." She inspected her fingernails – short, blunt and not really in need of an inspection.

"That's the problem, though. Even when they see the problems people just shrug and say we'll muddle through. No need to be melodramatic." He suddenly rammed the tip of his walking stick hard against the floor, making Lara jump. "Well it ain't going to happen. We've reached a point where we aren't just going to muddle through anymore – where we have to start taking drastic corrective action."

"And you're the man to take this drastic corrective action? Quite the task you've taken on yourself."

"Someone has to Lara. I'm not saying I can accomplish it all by myself. In fact I know I can't. But I can at least attempt to kick-start the process before it becomes too late." His expression was suitably modest. "Take global warming as an example. It's undeniable. We're starting to see the effects of it on our climate. The polar icecaps are shrinking and the sea levels are rising. There's a fucking enormous hole in the ozone layer. Even if we stop all production of greenhouse gasses today we're in for centuries of problems. Yet we're not stopping. We're not even slowing down. In fact we're accelerating at a frightening rate. Even as we speak my own country is torpedoing a bill that would set restrictions on greenhouse gas production so as not to offend the oil companies or provoke my fat-ass countrymen with higher fuel bills in an election year."

Lara could here the passion in his voice. If it was an act it was a good one.

"And that's just one tiny example. There's a thousand other ways we're destroying ourselves right now. War, famine, pestilence, and death: the four horsemen ride across the land unchecked. Yet it's in our power to correct, if only we wanted to. We produce enough food every year to feed everyone on the planet and still have a surplus left over. Half of the diseases we die of are preventable. All of our wars are matters of petty pride, or stem from feuds so old the participants can no longer remember what started them or why they are even fighting.

"Everything is dictated by money, Lara. Islam, Christianity, Hinduism – they're just dying tinpot little faiths that caused more harm than good to begin with. Beside the true faith of our time – Mammonism – they are grains of sand blowing in the wind. We like to think we are the masters of what we survey, but we are merely slaves – and slaves to something of our own creation. Millions die to feed its turbulent whims."

Charron took a deep breath and stopped, his smile quickly returning. "My apologies Lara. I said I would not give a sermon. It seems I am a liar after all. I hope you'll forgive me, but it is a subject I am quite passionate about."

"A nice speech, Mr. Charron. Although coming from someone who earlier proclaimed himself a businessman, it seems a little. . . odd." Lara didn't try to hide the curl of her lip. "But you'll forgive me for wondering how it impacts on our current situation? Namely, Megaera, Alecto and Tisiphone."

"Ah yes the point. The point. Always we must get to the point." Charron appeared lost in thought, and Lara had the brief urge to grab her shotgun and see if it worked any better now he was distracted.

Then he focused on her again and the idea faded. "The thing is Lara, we're never going to change from how we are now. That's the biggest tragedy. Oh I'm not talking scientifically, even though our scientific advancement is determined purely by what will bring the greatest profit – not by what will benefit humanity the most. No we'll continue to advance in that way. I'm referring more to our advancement as a species."

"How fascinating." 

He ignored the sarcasm. "You see Lara, we've gotten to where we are now too quickly. And to all intents of purposes we're stuck with it – a species trapped in perpetual spotty adolescence, or worse, squalling infanthood. No more natural selection: the survival of everyone rather than the fittest; even the weakest remaining within the gene pool. Fine things, in principal, but we've reached this point way before we're ready to cope with it. Look at us. Are we really a pinnacle of evolution? Are we really all that we could be? Or just a bunch of smug near chimpanzees who've gotten above themselves; too bloody stupid to even guarantee our own survival.

"I have within me a spark of what we could become Lara – and there are a few thousand others like me. But as it stands that will go to waste; be diluted and disappear forever."

_The same old story._ Lara felt cold. "You know Luke, you were doing so well up till that last part. You almost sounded sane. A little overwrought maybe, but largely rational. Now you're starting to come over like dear old Jacqui, and I'm afraid I'm not interested in listening to all that bollocks again."

The smile froze. "Jacqui?"

"Oh I doubt that you knew her. Strange woman with some odd ideas about evolution. Mad as pants unfortunately. Sounds like the two of you would have gotten along just swimmingly." _A marriage made in heaven; or at least somewhere related_. She suppressed a shudder.

Thawed out again, his tone light. "Mock if you want Lara. Though I had expected slightly more from someone such as you. At least that you would hear out what I have to say, rather than dismissing it out of hand."

Lara tilted her head back, momentarily closing her eyes, as if that would make him go away. "My mind is open enough about a lot of things Mr. Charron. On the subject of Nietzsche, supermen, eugenics and so forth I have to confess that it is completely closed however. It begets nothing more than monstrosity, as the Nazi's and numerous others have proved."

Charron burst out laughing – resounding musical peals that echoed through the room. "Is that what you think I am about Lara? I assure you, you couldn't be further from the truth. Such things repulse me as much as I'm sure they do you. Though I might argue that, as with communism, it is with human nature rather than the philosophy itself that the main fault lies."

"As enthralling as a discussion about philosophy would no doubt be. . ."

"Quite. Quite. Now is not the time." He inclined his head. Lara calculated how easy it would be to drive her foot into his face. "But what I am saying is that in order for us to progress – to fulfil the promise that I know we hold – we need a little help and guidance on our way; to put us back on the right track, so to speak. After all Lara, are you truly content to walk when it within you to fly? I know that I am not."

"Proper help and guidance?" _Oh yes, typical_. "I assume you would be one of those who would see we remain on this 'right track' as you put it?"

Again a laugh, though more restrained this time. "You have me wrong again Lara. No, I do not believe it is within the power of any human, however well meaning to give the guidance I speak about. And no one would listen in any case. If Jesus came back today he would be laughed at – a joke, fit only for appearances on the Jerry Springer show."

Lara recalled what Avery Rose had said; about the Erinyes figurines containing fragments of the Erinyes themselves. "You want to raise the Erinyes? Use your. . ." She almost choked on the word. ". . . magic to restore the Greek deities of retribution and vengeance; have them keep us on the straight and narrow?" _I tell a lie. Jacqui was positively sane beside this._

"Getting warmer, but still no cigar. You know the significance of blood Lara?"

"Well it keeps us alive Mr. Charron." For the first time she returned his smile, though it was hard-edged, and she shifted in her seat, making clear her impatience.

"You said you wanted an explanation for why I wanted the figurine Lara. That's what I'm trying to give you."

She waved him to go on, though inside the tension hadn't diminished one iota. What the hell was he really trying to pull? He surely couldn't believe that he was going to be able to convince her to hand the figurine over to him, especially with this line of crap.

With a nervous start her glance dropped to her backpack. Right where she'd left it, on the table beside her shotgun. She concealed the sigh of relief. "You were saying about blood?"

"Yes. Blood. It has been associated with mystical power since the dawn of human history. Almost every culture that has ever existed has adopted blood sacrifice at some point in its history. Vampires are supposed to need to drink blood in order to maintain their immortality. People have bathed in blood in the belief it would prolong their life. Catholic Holy Communion even celebrates the drinking of the blood of Christ."

"I'm sure there is a point here. . ." Lara interrupted, pointedly glancing at the clock.

"Blood is the source of my Magic."

She looked up at him sharply. Wheels began to turn inside her head.

He continued as if oblivious. "All human blood contains power, no matter how weak or sickly, or insignificant the person. Blood is the wellspring of human life, and for those with the knowledge and ability to tap into it, it is the source of miracles. Even the gateway to new worlds and higher planes of consciousness."

"Or alternatively you can have some jollies burning a helpless man to death in his own bed." Suddenly the reason he wanted the Erinyes figurines hit home. "The blood of Uranus, forefather of the Olympian Pantheon, spilled to earth when he was castrated by his son, Cronus. . ." She trailed off, not really aware that she had even spoken aloud. "You don't want to raise the Erinyes do you? You want to sacrifice them, to make the power you think their blood contains your own."

His smile had again become so wide and bright it didn't quite look human. "And think of that power! You saw what a fraction of that extracted from a single human being could achieve this afternoon. How many hundreds or thousands, or even millions of times more could the pure blood of divinity threefold over give someone? One could be as a god themselves, if they wished."

Lara stared at him. Despite the ever-present smile he still seemed completely and deadly serious. "I've met some seriously cracked individuals in my time Mr. Charron, but you. . . You take the cake and run with it."

Not a flicker. "Oh don't worry Lara. I do not seek to become a god. Even my hubris does not stretch quite that far. I assure that my intentions are entirely benevolent."

"World peace; goodwill to all living things; and that man should love his fellow man?" Sarcasm dripped.

He beamed at her. "Exactly, exactly! See? You do understand."

_Okay_. _When exactly did I fall through the looking glass?_ "And now of course, your good will established, you expect me just hand it over and send you happily on your way?"

He laughed again, giving Lara the profound urge to knock his teeth out. "Well, it would be nice, yes. But no, I do not seriously expect that. I realised I was a touch churlish this afternoon expecting you to give dear Alecto to me with no recompense. So I have an offer to make. Ten million pounds sterling, transferred immediately into the account of your choice."

"Ten million pounds sterling?" Lara tried to appear unruffled.

"An extremely generous sum, wouldn't you agree Lara? It should amply cover the cost of any repairs, plus the inconvenience. I know for a fact that it is considerably more than the highest single fee you've ever received for recovering an artefact. All for very little actual work."

_Way, way more_. "So generous makes me suspicious." He'd be insane to pay even a tenth that much. "Why didn't you just come to me with this offer in the first place? It would have saved a lot of trouble."

He spread his hands again, leaning forward in his chair. "As I said this afternoon. I am a businessman at heart, and my thief was considerably cheaper." A flicker of something in his expression that she didn't think related to her. "Besides, there was a chance you would refuse, and at the time I felt it would be. . . _simpler_ if you weren't involved."

"Just your bad luck that I happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"Expensive bad luck. So Lara, do you accept my offer?"

Ten million pounds. She may have been rich by most people's standards, but still. . . Ten million would make a lot of things she had planned a hell of a lot easier. It would remove financial considerations entirely from the equation for a long time to come. She studied Luke Charron closely again, able to feel the undercurrent of menace and darkness from his grinning figure again. Ten million for her self-respect.

It was almost tempting, even if it couldn't possibly be for real.

Her expression hardened. "I'm afraid I'm going to need some time to think it over." Flat out refusal, she sensed would not be a good idea at this point.

To her surprise Charron accepted it perfectly calmly, merely inclining his head as if her response was no less than he had expected. "Of course. Though I would ask that you think quickly." He indicated the slim-line Rolex watch around his left wrist. "Say twelve noon, tomorrow. If I don't hear from you by then the offer will be withdrawn. I'll leave you my card, so you know how to get in touch with me."

A thin, plain white slip with sober black lettering, taken from the breast pocket of his jacket and placed on the table beside the only other thing resting on it. Lara's shotgun.

"Well, if that concludes our business. . ." 

He waved her to sit down, then used his walking stick to lever himself up from his seat. "No need, no need. I can find my own way out." 

Lara watched his departing back, noting that his limp appeared much worse than it had seemed this afternoon. She made sure she followed, watching him all the way until the front door closed behind his back. Then she let out a deep sigh of relief.

The ogre had come a visiting and she'd managed to get through it without being eaten. Turning on heel, she padded back to the living room, running a hand through her still damp hair. _What a day._

Her pack was still sitting, where she'd put it, beside her chair, untouched, and she hurried across to it, slightly amazed that it was still in her possession.

A stray memory: halfway through the conversation, the pack sitting on the table between them. Suddenly her heart was racing, her fingers turned clumsy as they fumbled with the straps. _No, no, no. . . ._

A deep, shuddering exhalation as she saw what was inside, lifting it out, her hands shaking fractionally as she did so. Eight inches tall, so light it must be hollow. A badly painted plaster figure of Mickey Mouse, grinning up at her inanely.

For a time the entire world seemed to spin, the figure in her hands laughing at her mockingly. Then her face twisted in a snarl of absolute rage. She hurled the thing as hard as she could across the room against the wall.

Behind her the shotgun finally, belatedly, discharged itself with a deafening roar.

* * *

Luke Charron was bent double, coughing violently so that it seemed like he was trying to forcibly expel his own lungs. His whole body shook. Spittle frothed from either corner of his mouth, tinged pink with blood, while his sunglasses had fallen off, lying askew on the bathroom floor.

After the coughing subsided a fraction he suddenly heaved, vomiting loudly into the toilet bowel. The vomit, like his spittle was bloody.

For a time he just knelt there, tremors racking his shoulders intermittently. Then, after they had started to subside somewhat, he forced himself slowly and unsteadily to his feet. His prosthetic limb twisted under him, forcing him to catch himself against the wall.

_Bitch. Bloody bitch._ Somewhere inside his head he thought he could hear two harsh, feminine voices laughing at him mockingly. He bared his teeth, also stained pink. It was difficult to tell if the expression was meant to be a smile or a snarl.

Once he was reasonably sure of his balance, and his head had stopped spinning quite so much, he turned ponderously around and started to make his way towards the door, leaning against the wall to support himself. A couple of times he had to pause as more coughing wracked him.

Having to delay the reaction of the gunpowder in Croft's shotgun had drained the last of the power he had absorbed from this morning's vessel. _Psychotic, trigger-happy cow._ Another smile-come-snarl twisted his face. That had left him with only his own reserves to draw upon to weave the illusions and misdirections that had been required. By the end of it he had been as weak as a child, scoured raw inside. _If Croft had had any inkling. . ._ Another shudder passed through him at the thought.

He made it to the door and half-staggered through, immediately collapsing onto the bed. Inside he could feel his stomach cramping painfully.

He had gotten what he wanted, in the end, as he always did. But he was paying the price now. Oh yes. He could feel his muscles shuddering and contracting, beyond his ability to control. Weariness lay upon him like a heavy stone.

Once he had recovered sufficiently Croft was going to receive a very nasty visitor. One in keeping with her violent and unpleasant nature. Then he would have to concern himself with her no more. . . With that thought still fixed, his mind began to drift.

At some point there was a knock upon the door, forcing him back to reality.

"Who is. . . it?" His voice was a rasping croak.

"Claudia," came the response.

Of course. It would be no one else. Gathering himself, Charron forced himself into a sitting position, exerting control over his rebelling body with an iron will. "Come in Claudia." This time his voice very nearly sounded its normal self.

He watched her as she walked across the room, smooth and graceful – almost panther-like. Her gaze was impassive as it touched his.

"Claudia, please sit down."

The towering blonde woman folded smoothly into the indicated chair. "You are unwell," she stated with no preamble.

He waved it off. "I over-extended myself somewhat. A good night's sleep will do much to correct it. Nevertheless I have achieved what I set out to, even if not in quite the way I envisaged. I count the day as a success."

She nodded. If there was any concern it was well masked. Just like all of her emotions were well masked.

"And what of you Claudia? How went the tasks I set you?" Well it would seem, if she was here now.

She removed a clear plastic bag from the pocket of her jacket and passed it across to him. His hand shook as he accepted it, and as he inspected the contents one eyebrow lifted. "Is this what I think it is my dear?"

"The blood of Hsu Yi Wen."

He tilted his head back and started laughing, even though it trailed quickly off into a hacking cough. "As ever you manage to exceed even my expectations Claudia." As he stared at the small, bloodstained knife part of him exulted. "She accepted the bait I take it?"

"Corvus Rein."

"Ah. See, I said he would prove to be useful for something, my dear."

"I did not doubt you, Luke."

No, he reflected silently, she wouldn't have.

"You were correct in your assumption that Megaera has taken control of the thief."

He nodded. Otherwise she would have brought Hsu Yi back in person. "Claudia, although you have done magnificently I have another task to ask of you."

"Of course Luke." Impossible, even for him, to read either pleasure or displeasure.

"I require another vessel Claudia."

Silence for several seconds. "Luke?"

He was aware of her gaze upon him, even though he didn't bother to open his eye again. He could tell what she was thinking too. Three in three days. He had never done that before and it was a risk on many different levels. Not least in that it became increasingly difficult to conceal and cover up.

"Claudia, I cannot afford to delay so close to culmination. Croft is, unfortunately still alive, and now a direct adversary. And Lomax and friends have turned against us. Plus there is the always-pressing risk of the others – the heretics. I must move quickly to take advantage of the gift you've given me, and to do that I require another vessel."

He sensed rather than saw her nod. "It shall be as you say Luke."

After a moment he heard the door click shut behind her. Soon now everything would be as he said. He allowed himself a smile – a genuine smile, very different to the mask he usually wore.

* * *

Emil sat in the windowsill of his apartment and watched the sun rise across the Thames. One hand stirred idly at the line of salt there. Protection.

It hadn't protected him against the nightmares.

How long he'd been sitting there he didn't know. An hour? Two? Probably less, knowing how time went. One thing he did know was that he wasn't going to be doing any more sleeping. Part of it was the muscles in his back. Yesterday, when he'd been active and moving they'd seemed to be okay. Now, after a night's inactivity, they smouldered with a dull louring fire, persistent and unfading. Mainly though it was the damned nightmares.

He hadn't had them for several weeks now. Maybe that had lulled him into a false sense of security, allowing them to bite especially deep. It had been the new ones rather than the old.

London was beautiful at this time of day, the skyline backlight in pink and orange, everything deceptively soft and calmly tranquil. Mercifully cool before the heat wave once again kicked in. One thing it did prove, he guessed as he contemplated it, was that even nature could be proved a liar.

In the first nightmare he'd been back on the table; cold metal beneath his back, a bright light shining down into his eyes; steel manacles holding him trapped in place. His tormentor was pacing round him, anti-clockwise, just beyond the edges of his sight. Pacing. Always pacing. Never speaking and never answering his questions, no matter how frantic they grew. Then, eventually, the pacing would stop. That was when the fear really caught. "Welcome home," a voice would whisper, followed by a sharp metallic sound. It always ended there.

The second dream was somehow worse, although it was anything but a nightmare when it started out. 

In it he was lying in an endless field of ripe golden corn with Mariana – his long dead love – blue sky overhead, satiny golden sunlight all around; all embracing. Peace. Contentment. Love. A feeling that this was where he was meant to be. Mariana would touch his arm softly and smile at him, laughter bubbling beneath the surface. He would ask her, teasing, what was so funny, and she would lean closer as though to whisper an answer. Before she could speak he would catch her in his arms, pulling her close and kissing her on the lips. 

That was always when the change occurred. The sky would go instantaneously dark and it would no longer be Mariana in his arms but Gianna, grinning up at him. She _would_ whisper something – something he never quite managed to catch. He would always respond by rolling over onto his back and opening up his ribcage for her so she could reach inside and take his heart. That was when he woke up, drenched in sweat. 

After the second dream he never managed to get to sleep again.

Gianna B. Vampire and Succubus all in one.

The hand stirring idly in the salt clenched tightly into a fist. His hatred for her was like a cancer, eating him from within.

After Armenia he'd made enquiries about her in Trieste. He didn't know whether he'd meant to kill her, but he'd certainly been seeking some kind of resolution – to slay the monster she'd become inside his head. He'd found, though, that she'd disappeared, and the Croatians now owned the city. Rumour claimed that she was dead, but there had been neither hide nor hair of a body, and no one who could say they'd seen her die.

Rationally he knew that the rumours were correct. There was no other sensible explanation. She'd been irrational after her lover's death and made some kind of slip. The Croatians had got her, and at their hands her death would have been a thousand times worse than anything he could have contrived. Even now her body was part of the foundation of some construction project, or weighed down at the bottom of Trieste's harbour.

But since he'd never seen that body he could never quite make himself believe. There was a nagging feeling that somewhere she was still out there. 

His own guilt, given a face by his subconscious. If only his heart would accept that fact.

He tried to push her out of his mind, his gaze turning from the sunrise to the door of the spare bedroom where Joanna was sleeping. Was she managing to rest peacefully, he wondered, or did that smoothly impassive face hide nightmares of its own?

From knowing her these past couple of days, despite her cool and deadly competence, he tended to suspect the latter. There was something between her and Charron that went beyond merely the professional need to do a job. She'd come close to telling him shortly after they'd first met, he was sure, and he doubted she'd voluntarily come that close again.

_Charron_. Emil shuddered. There was a genuine nightmare to worry about. Not a phantom of the mind.

_No, I don't want to think about him just now._ Plenty of time for that later: time when it would become unavoidable.

He closed his eyes, wincing as a twinge shot the length of his aching back. _Lara_. Her face swam into focus and he almost managed a smile. _Lara, my talisman against the nightmares. _Memory of her kisses – fire on his lips – flooded back. The feel of her body as it pressed against him, and his own response to it. He shuddered, although this time it was nothing to do with fear, and neither was the subtle quickening of his breathing. _Lara._

A deep, shuddering sigh. No, he was reading too much into it. Desperate times did strange things to a person. In those circumstances even Joanna might have kissed him, in the manic relief of survival. A wry chuckle at the thought. Okay, perhaps not. Perhaps that was stretching his imagination slightly too far.

_Lara, my friend._ That amazed him still. After what had happened in Trieste he had been astonished that she would even speak to him again, yet she had never brought it up, and never held it against him in the slightest. _No, I don't deserve you as a friend, but I hope you never realise that_.

They needed to talk – really properly talk – but not while all this was going on. 

__

Damn, I wish you'd never gotten involved in this. Yet it seemed that she had always been at its heart, and it had been unavoidable. And despite his protestations there was a part of him that was glad. That made him feel guilty too.

The intercom buzzer went, cutting through his thoughts. _Back to life. Back to reality._

Grimacing in discomfort at his stiffness, he got to his feet and walked across to answer it. "Yes? Who is it?" A glance across at the clock showed it wasn't even six o'clock yet.

"Emil. Something's come up." Lara's voice. He couldn't remember ever hearing quite so much anger in it. 

_No, not anger. Cold fury._

* * *

St. James Park, the morning sun blazing brilliantly down, temperature in the high twenties and rising. Famed from numerous spy thrillers, with the Houses of Parliament rising into view in the background, it had seemed somehow appropriate that the meeting take place here.

Lara strode briskly along the path, a slim-line black leather briefcase held in one hand. 

She was dressed so that to the casual eye would take her to be just some businesswoman, or particularly glamorous parliamentary PA, wearing a tweed skirt that stopped a hand span short of her knees and a sleeveless cream silk blouse.

Her face was fixed and unreadable, eyes hidden behind sunglasses – black rather than her customary red-tinted ones. The casual eye wouldn't have noticed this part however, having forgotten everything else except staring at her legs for as long as it could keep them in view. These were truly spectacular.

A number of men – young and not so young – were currently doing precisely this. Most were wearing sunglasses too, under the strange illusion that men seemed to have that because their eyes couldn't be seen it wasn't completely obvious what they were doing.

Of course Lara wasn't the only focus for the eyes. There were a number of other attractive women to look at too, either sunning themselves, or in clusters, smoking.

There were also a considerable number of middle-aged men, in their shirtsleeves because of the heat. Some of these were smoking too, or deep in conference, but most, Lara suspected, were simply out talent spotting. Several she recognised as politicians. 

Good to know that taxpayers' money was going to such good use.

She saw him, standing exactly where he had said he would be, his back to her as he stared out across the small lake, a gaggle of ducks gathering expectantly near his feet. To truly fit in with the Le Carré traditions of the place, she reflected, he should really be sitting on the nearby bench, feeding them from a brown paper bag.

Lara slowed her pace as she approached, taking the opportunity to study him while he was still unaware of her presence. He was a good bit over six foot tall – six three of four maybe – and the plain white t-shirt he wore did nothing much to hide his rangy, leanly muscular frame. She put his weight at around the one-ninety mark and none of it was waste. Even from behind he looked strong and fit, and very, very dangerous. Black hair was short and bristly, his bare arms deeply tanned. Her eyes fixed on his left hand, tightly wrapped in bandages, the thumb hooked through the belt of his faded blue jeans.

Only when she moved to stand beside him did he bother to look around and down at her, his expression tightly contained.

"Lomax," she greeted him simply. She doubted that he'd appreciate the crack she'd had in mind about the weather in Vladivostock, and to tell the truth she didn't feel like she had much of a sense of humour herself just now.

"Croft," he returned. "You're five minutes early." His face seemed carved out of stone.

"And you're even earlier, but I won't hold it against you." Someone over to their left laughed. It seemed like they must come from an entirely different world.

Earlier this morning Lara had finally gotten around to looking at her e-mails. Over sixty of them, waiting for her attention, although the one from Nikolas Daskalopulu had leapt out at her straight away. Her heart had frozen even before she'd opened it, and after she'd finished reading it she'd cried – the first time she'd done so in years. She'd heard about his death yesterday morning on the radio. She just hadn't realised it at the time.

"So what is it that you want exactly Croft? You've got quite a nerve, coming to me."

Lara had gone over how to do this several times inside her head on the way here. Simple and to the point, she decided would be the best. "I want to hire you, Mr. Lomax."

He grunted, taken momentarily aback. Then he let out a harsh, barking laugh. "You want to hire me? Are you fucking serious?"

"Do you see me laughing Mr Lomax?"

He stared at her, eyes hard and stony. She could feel his incredulous anger, as though he thought he was being mocked. "Why?" He finally bit.

"Last night Luke Charron entered my home uninvited and took the Alecto figurine. I want your help getting the thing back."

"No," the response instantaneous. "No, no, no." He shook his head emphatically, as if he hadn't already made it perfectly clear, then started to turn away.

Lara's voice stopped him. "May I ask why Mr. Lomax?"

For a moment she thought he was going to walk away in any case. Then he turned back to her, lips twisting almost in a snarl. "Why?" His hands twitched as though he wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her until her teeth rattled. "Are you stupid or just plain insane? I've had it up to here with that fucking thing! Because of a one of my men – a friend – is dead. As far as I'm concerned you and that bastard Charron are quite welcome kill each other over it, but you can leave me out of it."

"So it scares you. Quite understandable really I suppose. It scares me too."

For a moment Lomax just looked at her. Lara looked right back. No one else in the park took much notice of them. "Goodbye Ms. Croft. . ."

"What are you going to do now Mr. Lomax?" She interrupted him.

"That is my business."

"You see, the way I figure it, this has left you seriously out of pocket," she continued quickly before he could just walk off. "Charron hasn't paid up for your services, has he? Never mind covered all the expenses you've incurred."

"What do you care?"

"I don't, particularly, if I'm honest. But I think you do."

"You know nothing about me."

Lara shrugged. "In this briefcase I have two-hundred thousand pounds cash Mr. Lomax. An advance payment. There is another similar briefcase awaiting the completion of the task, plus any expenses that are incurred along the way."

He stopped again, and for the first time there was a flicker of interest in his expression. It was quickly gone. "I don't care how much money you're offering Croft. The answer is still no."

Finally she had the sense he was there to be persuaded. Quickly, or she'd lose him again. "I don't think you can afford to turn this down Mr. Lomax. And I'm not talking just financially. Do you seriously expect Charron to let you walk away from this? From his viewpoint you've at the least failed him badly and at worst betrayed him. And he doesn't strike me as the sort to forgive and forget."

Silence, although from the look in his eyes at least part of him would have gladly hit her.

"You've got to take care of him before he takes care of you I think, whatever you decide today. Otherwise you're going to be running for a long, long time. Wouldn't it be sensible to at least get paid well for something you're likely going to have to do anyway?"

He bared his teeth at her. "That's all very well Croft, but you still don't seem to understand what you're up against. If we go against Charron we will die. You saw what happened yesterday, and then he was on his own and taken by surprise."

"We've all got to die someday Mr. Lomax."

He closed his eyes, his uninjured hand coming up to pinch the bridge of his nose. Lara sensed that she'd almost got him, though she kept her face expressionless.

"You have to realise that I don't like you Croft."

She shrugged again, forcing away the memory of him holding a gun to her face. "And I suppose you did like Mr. Charron. And the person who employed you before that."

A hint of a smile cracked briefly across his face, though there was very little humour in it. Recognition that she'd scored a point. "I'll have to consult the others. I won't take a job where they're unwilling."

It was an effort to hold back an exhalation of relief. She'd won, at least in this one small thing. Her gaze wandered around her immediate surroundings. There was an old man snoozing on one of the nearby benches, a copy of The Sun newspaper on his lap; a young couple beneath the shade of a tree, meanwhile, were wrapped in each others arms and exploring each others tonsils, seemingly oblivious to the world around them. The absolute normalcy of everything was comforting yet at the same time infuriating.

"How is Mr. Rankin?" She enquired after the man she'd last seen bleeding and in shock. _Might at least pretend to be friends if we're going to work together._

"He'll live. And make a full recovery, physically at least. He's going to be laid up for a while, but the worst of it's shock."

"That's good to know." She hesitated, not quite sure how to broach this next bit. "About Travis."

"What about him?" Instantly she sensed Lomax back on the defensive, the walls coming up.

This could blow the whole deal, she was well aware. "I think, given the situation between the two of us, you might want to give him some time off."

"No." The reply was flat and immediate, brooking no argument. "We're a team and you hire us as a team. All or nothing. If we accept your offer you get Travis as well, like it or nor. Clear?" 

She looked up at him – at that granite hard face. He wasn't going to budge, she saw right away.

Finally she inclined her head. "I'll leave it to your judgement."

"Unless there's anything else I'll go and present your offer to the others."

Lara extended the briefcase to him. "Take this. You can always return it if you decide to refuse my offer." She didn't think they would.

He hesitated for an interminable few seconds, before giving a fractional nod.

"Meet me again in one hour." As he took the briefcase from her grasp she told him where. "I want to move against Charron tonight."

Before he turned and strode away he gave her another small, humourless smile. Perhaps there was a trace of grudging respect.

Lara let out a deep breath. Now all she had to hope was that tonight wasn't too late.

* * *

The seventeenth reincarnation of the twelfth High Priestess of Isis, Neria Nasau-Afan – known sometimes to the less enlightened as Patricia – sat alone in her shop and was afraid. Very afraid.

A mug of herbal tea was clenched tightly in both hands and shook noticeably. A line of it dribbled down the mug's side and dripped, unnoticed onto the copious skirts covering her lap. Earlier she'd tried no less than five separate readings and they'd all come out exactly the same. She didn't even like to think about where they had pointed, but simply not thinking about it would ultimately change nothing.

The shop was closed. Neria hadn't felt she could bring herself to face customers, the way she felt today. If by some chance there had been customers.

All of the shelves had been laboriously shifted back to either side of the shop, leaving a broad clear aisle between the door and the counter she was sitting behind. In the space they'd left the three circles had been drawn in coloured chalks and charcoal – a bizarre and complicated pattern that defied the name circle, more closely resembling a stylised representation of the Milky Way overlaid by a pentagram and all surrounded by a braided ring. Twelve strange symbols were arrayed around it, like the numerals of an arcane clock, and Neria could feel the whispers of power that emanated from it as a nagging reminder of her precarious situation.

She put the mug of tea aside on the counter, her stomach churning too much to enjoy it. Then she stood and began to do something that she rarely did. Pace – continuously back and forth, long skirt whispering softly as it brushed across the bare floorboards.

For the moment Neria was alone. _She_ had gone out with the first light without saying where. It should have been a relief – to be away from that frighteningly cold, cruel presence. Yet it wasn't. 

Neria's thoughts kept coming back to the circles she had drawn and what they signified, and the fear grew inside her inch by inch – a vile foetus that would birth itself as a monster. The circles meant that _She_ was worried about something. Not only that, but _She_ expected that something to find its way here.

A shudder passed through Neria's ample form at the thought of something capable of worrying _Her_

_Why me? Why did she have to choose me?_ It was all she could do to stop herself tearing her hair out by its roots. But the answer was there as always, heavy as a tombstone. _Because it is your calling. Because you have always been there to be chosen._

The bell on the shops locked door rang as – impossibly – it opened.

Suddenly her heart was fluttering inside her chest like a trapped hummingbird. She'd clearly felt the release of power, finger-light though it had been.

There was someone standing directly across from her, the three circles between the two of them. If Neria had had enough breath she would have screamed in that moment.

He didn't move towards her, seemingly unable to cross the circle. Slowly Neria's breathing and heart rate stabilised – at least in part – and she was able to study the intruder, although her instincts screamed at her to flee.

A man. Just a man, and not a demon from the pits of hell. 

He was quite tall and slim in build, wearing an expensive looking suit including jacket and tie, despite the sapping heat. Sunglasses covered his eyes and there was a smile on his handsome forty-something face. A friendly and reassuring smile that led her to relax a little further despite herself.

A businessman from the city. Of the sort that never, ever came into her shop.

Neria's gaze stopped on the strangely ornate walking stick that he carried and she recollected the small release of power she'd felt – the locked door, swinging open. Suddenly the fear came back full force.

"Interesting." His voice, American accented, was just as convivial as his expression. "Did you draw this? It's very good."

She managed to nod, though she couldn't make herself speak.

"The circles of warding, protection and misdirection. Am I correct?"

Another nod. That he was even here indicated the circle of misdirection for one had already failed.

"Not many people even know of these, let alone how to draw and imbue them. You have talent, I can feel." His smile broadened. "A pity that you appear to have chosen to waste it."

A spark of indignation swept away some of the fear and gave her back her voice. "W-Who are you to say what I am wasting?"

"Oh, no one in particular." His smile didn't waver. "But look around you." A sweep of his arm encompassed the shelves. "Ninety-nine percent of this is junk. The tools of charlatans who seek to imitate us who have true power, yet have no hope of achieving it."

"H-Have you come here just to mock me?"

"No, no." He managed to look contrite. "I do not seek to mock. But you have so much potential, and it is a shame to see it not being used."

"P-Perhaps I am happy the way I am."

"Are you? Are you really?" He raised an eyebrow, disbelief quite clear. "I think your heart senses what more you could be and yearns for it, whatever you might say."

Neria felt her mouth go dry. Magic – the power – was a drug more addictive than that sold by any dealer; a sweetness more profound than Ambrosia. So far in her life she had managed only frustratingly small and brief tastes. Temptation prickled across her skin and she had to fight it down hard.

"But I have not come here to discuss magic with you, although I will gladly do so if you wish. I am looking for a friend –" He paused. "Well to tell the truth more an acquaintance. I was led to believe she was staying here. A Chinese woman about so tall." His hand indicated somewhere about five feet off the ground. "Her hair is short and she is very beautiful in her way, although most tend to find her personality quite intimidating." There was fondness in his voice, as if he was describing an old school friend.

The fear spiked again. This was who _She_ had been expecting. She opened her mouth to voice a denial, but he cut her off. "Oh, I know she is not here at the moment, but I'm expecting her back sometime soon now. I was wondering if you might permit me to await her return."

_No. Get out. Get out now._ It remained unvoiced however. She simply stared at him.

"I promise you, I'll try not to get in the way." He dripped charm.

She wetted her lips. "Er. . ."

"While we wait I could share some of my knowledge with you." He lifted one hand from his walking stick and waved it casually towards her. A seed of softly glowing light appeared on his fingertip and floated towards her, bobbing gently in the air.

Neria's gaped as the seed of light stopped a couple of inches in front of her nose. At the heart of it she could make out the tiny, exquisite naked figure of a fairy. It winked at her once and disappeared.

"W-What. .? How did you do that?" Even through the fear she felt a sense of wonder, and also, she had to confess, envy.

"There is very little you cannot do if you know how to tap into the power of blood."

Suddenly Neria had taken several rapid steps backwards, until she could go no further, pressed against the counter. She suddenly found it difficult to catch her breath. "You. . . You are a Blood Magician?"

He simply kept on smiling, saying nothing.

"Th-That is forbidden." She still couldn't seem to breathe properly. "That is abomination!"

"Rather melodramatic don't you think? It is a form of the power like any other – only stronger."

"It is theft of what doesn't belong to you. . . Murder." Neria started to edge sideways around the counter, wanting desperately to put its bulk between her and him.

"Tell me my dear, if you could no longer touch the power – even in the small way that you can – would you really want to still live?"

"That is not the same! Not at all the same!" Anger overcame some of the terror.

He was no longer looking at her though, instead appearing to study the circles in front of him once more. "As I said, nicely drawn. It is a skill not everyone can master." He looked up again, directly at her. "A pity it is not sufficient."

As he finished speaking all of the patterns of chalk and charcoal making up the inner two circles – ward and protection – burst abruptly into white-hot flames and was scoured clean. As she gaped at him in a mixture of fright and astonishment, he took a couple of limping paces towards her.

"So, what can we do to pass the time before your friend returns?"

* * *

Hsu Yi couldn't get the man's screams – his pitiful cries of 'Kindly One' – out of her thoughts. She could still see him, in that cluttered, dimly lit basement as he turned the scissors towards himself blade first, then fell on them. He'd still been whispering for the 'Kindly One' to forgive him as blood had frothed in bubbles from his mouth.

She had witnessed plenty of terrible things in her time – brutal gangland slayings; remorselessly savage punishment beatings; bloody and indiscriminate shootouts – but somehow nothing had come close to that in terms of sheer, gut-wrenching horror. She hadn't been able to look away or close her eyes or filter out the sound. Every sense had burnt its way indelibly into her memories, unedited, until she had wanted scream too.

And all the time she had felt Megaera – the monstrous thing inside her head – feasting, seeming to devour every scrap of the man's suffering and grow brighter and brighter and hotter and hotter, until Hsu Yi was afraid she was going to be burnt up and consumed herself.

It had happened over half an hour ago now, and a couple of miles behind them. Still she could think of nothing else. Her surroundings were a blur, passing unnoticed before her eyes. 

__

You can't do that! Finally she shrieked out her rage and horror.

For a moment she thought that Megaera had not heard, too bloated from her feast to bother with minor irritants like herself. She was wrong.

_I can, thief_. Cold and sharper than a razor blade. _And I must. It is the duty that was laid out for me upon my creation._

You enjoy it. You revel in it

_I am what I am thief. I cannot change._ Nor would she if she could, Hsu Yi strongly sensed. _You should not feel pity for that man. He was a murderer, living unpunished, and what he did to himself was simply what he thought he deserved once I showed him the truth of what he was. What you saw was Justice._

_What I saw was you wallowing in a man's suffering._

_I am what I am._ Repeated with a deathly finality. _What do you think you would see thief, if I opened your mind to what you truly are?_

Silence. Hsu Yi didn't dare respond for fear of what she might provoke. She recognised the side street they were turning into and felt relief well up inside her. They were returning to the shop.

No more death and horror. For this morning at least.

The moment they stepped through the door Megaera started hissing and coiling like an angry snake. Hsu Yi felt another surge of panic. Then her eyes adjusted to the gloom of the shop's interior.

Luke Charron was sitting motionless on a chair in front of the counter. As ever he was smiling. Between them the chalk patterns she had seen Megaera's 'Priestess' – Neria, or whatever her name was – sketching out had been partially erased. The bare floorboards were blackened, as if from intense heat.

_Run!_ The reaction was instinctive.

Megaera ignored her – simply walked slowly forward, skirting around the remaining portion of the pattern. Never for an instant did she take her eyes from Charron's form.

Hsu Yi was frantically trying to twist her head from side to side, momentarily forgetting in her panic that she no longer had control of her body. Where there was Charron there would likely be Claudia too, waiting in the background, or some of the American's private army of thugs.

_Get out of here now you stupid bitch!_

She might as well have been banging her head against a brick wall for all the attention Megaera gave her.

"What have you done with my Priestess, Magician?" Her voice sounded odd to her own ears – distorted. She could feel Megaera's searing rage. 

"In the corner to my right." Charron still didn't move a muscle. "I assure you I haven't harmed so much as a single hair on her head."

Hsu Yi felt her neck twist round outside of her control. As he said, Neria was standing there, unmoving; a plump, pale woman with long and unruly dyed-red hair. From the look on her face she was paralysed with fear.

After staring at her for a couple of seconds her vision swam and altered subtly. Suddenly she could see ghostly threads of what looked like pale fire, floating around the woman, almost but not quite coming into contact with her skin. She realised that Megaera was allowing her to sea through whatever strange additional senses she possessed.

Megaera looked back at Charron. "Release her to me. Now."

"Of course. Of course." That infuriating smile didn't waver. "As soon as you give me what I want."

"I don't make bargains, Magician. Do as I order you." She continued to walk slowly and steadily towards him. Hsu Yi had the sense that she was walking deeper and deeper into a cave that poised to collapse at any second.

"I do like a domineering woman." Charron still hadn't moved and appeared to be completely unconcerned even though Megaera was now within arms reach of him.

"Your arrogance is amazing Magician. Never have I seen it's like. Yet you are building castles on the sand." Now she was standing directly over him, gazing down.

"How so, Megaera, my dearest love?" His voice contained amusement. Hsu Yi could smell floral perfume – violets perhaps. It was mixed with the odour of sweat.

Megaera reached out and laid a hand on Charron's forehead. Charron didn't so much as flinch. To Hsu Yi he felt hot and clammy, although his skin looked dry. Beneath her touch he was quivering, despite his appearance of calm.

Terror. Absolute terror. That was what Megaera was sensing from him.

The perfume. . . suddenly it hit Hsu Yi that something was very, very wrong.

"And so Magician it ends." To Megaera it was only natural that he should feel terror of her. Always humans felt terror of her. If she had been slightly more familiar with her new body's senses she might have spotted the same discrepancies that Hsu Yi had. But she wasn't, and didn't.

_Don't!_

Too late. Megaera unleashed her power.

It wasn't the judging power this time, to tear down the walls inside a person's head. Instead it was the savage, killing power, instantaneously stopping the heart and ripping loose the soul.

As Neria Nasau-Afan, the seventeenth reincarnation of the twelfth High-Priestess of Isis – also known as Patricia – died the illusion shattered. Instead of a tall, slender forty-something American man, wearing dark glasses and with a prosthetic leg, there was a soft plump woman sitting before them. Her skin was slick with sweat and her long hair fell in disarray. Ropes bound her securely to the chair and there was a strip of silver duct tape over her mouth to prevent her from crying out. Her eyes stared vacantly up at nothing.

Out of the corner of her eye Hsu Yi caught a glimpse of the figure they had initially taken to be Neria change and become Claudia Dumane. Then the pain hit her.

It was agony worse than anything she had experienced. Worse than anything she had even imagined. It felt like every single nerve ending in her body was being simultaneously and continuously struck by lightning. She could hear herself screaming, though it seemed to come from light-years away.

The pain was merely a shadow of what Megaera was feeling.

Dimly, Hsu Yi was aware of Claudia Dumane looming over her, securing heavy steel manacles, first around her wrists and then her ankles. It was impossible to even think about resisting.

Luke Charron – the real Luke Charron – stepped out from the doorway leading to the shop's back room, leaning on his walking stick. It was several seconds before she noticed him through the coruscating pain. 

"It appears the legends were correct." He spoke to Claudia, his words registering only on the dimmest edges of perception. "She really is forbidden to take an innocent life." Suddenly he was laughing, in the height of good humour. 

* * *

Night on the Thames. A motorcruiser travelling well in excess of speed regulations. It veered out of the wake of a slow moving barge and accelerated even faster around its bulk, swiftly cutting back in front of it again as Hammersmith Bridge loomed ahead.

There were five people on board. No one was speaking. Everything that needed to be said had been said, and what plans they had, had been made.

Lara was at the boat's controls, her long braid whipping out behind her in the wind. Her face was cool and impassive, damp from a fine mist of spray from the river. Her eyes were hidden by dark glasses that doubled as a comms headset and night-vision goggles.

Ahead of them their target loomed out of the night.

A warehouse and office complex with its own jetty and unloading docks. Spotlights lit it brightly. If you dug deeply enough – as Joanna and Emil had done – you would eventually discover that it was owned by a company, which was owned by a company in which one of Luke Charron's associates was a majority shareholder.

Lara eased back slightly on the throttle.

Outside of Charron Corporation's London headquarters – still crawling with police forensic teams – it had been the best lead that they had. Joanna and Emil had been watching the place since the middle of the afternoon. They'd reported Charron's arrival, accompanied by a very tall blonde woman and an entourage of bodyguards at around 6pm. With them, secured to a stretcher, there'd been another woman. Emil's words: _from the look of how they've got her strapped up she must be Hannibal Lector's less pleasant sister_.

No one had been able to guess who she was.

The jetty stuck out into the river ahead of them, their approach still seeming much too fast. Lara heard Travis shout something at her in which the word 'bitch' featured. She ignored him.

Four hours later and there'd been no report of them leaving. Lara had last spoken to Emil ten minutes ago, as they were starting out on this boat ride. He'd confirmed that there'd been no sign of movement and that everything was looking set for the night. His voice had been almost unreally cheerful. A sign, Lara knew, of his nerves. Since that time they'd been operating under radio silence, excepting emergencies.

At what seemed like the last possible instant – beyond the last possible instant even – Lara swung the boat violently around through ninety degrees and cut the power to the engine.

Within six inches of what she'd been aiming for. Unfortunately that meant they brushed against the side of the jetty, sending a violent jolt through the entire craft. _Oh well, not my boat_. Behind her someone fell over amid a loud clatter. _I wonder who that could have been_.

Before the boat had even stopped rocking Simon was moving, astonishingly fast and quiet. Lomax and Hicks went hot on his heels and Lara – dressed in skin-tight black so that she blended almost seamlessly into the night – brought up the rear. Travis stayed with the boat – ostensibly keeping their escape route open.

That hadn't even been Lara's suggestion.

Lomax signalled for the trailing three of them to duck behind a row of blue plastic barrels – designed to float if they fell in the water. Simon moved on ahead, in a low crouch and fading almost to invisibility as he passed into a wide swathe of darkness between the range of two banks of lights.

It was a couple of seconds before Lara spotted the guard, walking a patrol with a very big German Shepherd. Her breath caught. For a moment he appeared to be staring straight at Simon. She waited for him to reach for the radio at his collar and raise the alarm, but instead his gaze simply moved on. Looking from light into dark she reminded herself, letting out an inaudible breath. Then his head swung round in the direction of the boat.

Above the gentle lapping of the river water there was a faint sound – a soft, almost inaudible hiss.

The German Shepherd collapsed onto its side, mewling pathetically. A tranquilliser dart protruded from its flank. For a moment the guard simply stared down at the dog, not comprehending what was going on. It was a moment too long.

Lara saw a shadow loom behind him – an extremely stocky looking ghost. How on earth Simon had managed to cover the ground so quickly and quietly she didn't know.

Just as the guard's expression was altering Simon's black-gloved hand clamped tightly over the man's mouth and he swung him round. A second or so later he was lowering a limp body to the ground, dead or unconscious Lara couldn't tell. 

As the Englishman began dragging both dog and handler into concealment behind a stack of crates the three of them moved from their cover to join him.

"Mark one." Lara spoke the pre-arranged signal into the headset.

"Acknowledged. All clear." Emil's response contained no more emotion than the speaking clock.

They moved quickly towards the main building, the forecourt they were traversing so brightly lit that it might as well have been the middle of the day. Most of the way there was at least some cover to shield them from the eyes of anyone in the building. The last twenty yards or so were completely bare though, giving a horribly agoraphobic sense of exposure as they crossed.

"You're going to have company in around fifteen seconds." Emil's voice in their ears. "A guard with dog. Coming through the door ten yards ahead and three to your right." The headsets they all wore incorporated camera's giving a direct feed to the van Emil and Joanna were sitting in a couple of streets away.

"Roger." Lomax moved to one side of the door, Simon the other. Lara and Hicks hurried to get out of sight.

"Ten. Stop the door closing behind him. It'll make getting in a lot smoother."

"Five."

"Now."

The door opened right on cue. Lomax tranquillised the dog before the guard even realised there was anything wrong and Simon grabbed him just as a hint of surprise started to dawn. Like the first guard he went down without a sound. Lomax caught the door before it could swing shut.

They were in. Simple as that. The bodies of the dog and guard were dumped in a nearby storage closet and forgotten. Ahead of them the corridor was deserted, the only sound a quiet electric hum from one of the light-fittings.

"Okay. . . You want the third door along on the right. There are stairs where you can get to the top floor." Which was where the spy satellite Emil was accessing had shown Charron's entourage had headed. Unfortunately it couldn't still see them. The complex of rooms they'd entered was somehow shielded.

"Roger." Lomax responding again.

"At the top you'll find two guards. Both armed. Handguns."

No more conversation. Simon took the lead again with Lomax close behind, Lara again bringing up the rear. 

A glance through the window in the door at the top of the stairs showed that Emil's assessment of the guards had been spot on – two large men in sober looking suits openly carrying handguns. There was no way to get past them; no way to sneak up on them and take them unawares. Something about their stance suggested they weren't likely to be amenable to persuasion. The time for tranquillisers and stealth were at an end. If she was honest, Lara was surprised that it had gotten them this far.

Lomax stepped back to allow Hicks and Lara space to get past – his hand prevented him from using the suppressed MP5's they were both carrying. Simon looked at them both in turn and got a silent nod in response. Lara felt herself gritting her teeth.

He pushed the door open.

One of the guards looked round immediately. His eyes widened fractionally and he started to raise his gun. That was all the time he had.

Lara shot him right between the eyes, the sound of the bullet little more than a whisper. Hicks was no less accurate. Two lifeless bodies folded up, hitting the carpeted floor with muffled thuds.

Two more dead whose only really crime was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

For a few seconds they waited, half expecting an outcry of panic and raised alarms. Nothing happened though. The corridor remained empty and silent.

"Clear." Emil's voice, confirming that no rush of armed guards was heading their way.

As they moved towards their target Lara slung the MP5 back over her shoulder and drew the pistol holstered at her hip. It wasn't her usual 9mm Browning's or Beretta's, or even the Desert Eagle she occasionally used. This was something much more unique – something that was normally kept tucked away in a hidden draw inside her treasure chamber.

It had been a gift from a Japanese Yakuza hitman who'd once been extremely taken with her. After she'd dumped his initial offering of flowers in a hotel bin he'd presented it to her a week later.

_Flowers you might appreciate this time_, he'd said. And indeed, there _were_ carvings of lotus blossoms worked into the fantastical engravings that covered it. The pistol was made from iron, plated with silver, the grip inlaid with pearl and jade. Lines of Japanese characters went up and down either side of its barrel and it looked more a work of art than a viable weapon. _Made for fighting demons, and blessed by a holy man._

She'd shot him with it just a few days later, but that was another story.

She had never used it in anger since then. It was less accurate than her normal weapons and held less bullets. The clips it used had to be custom made too, so she didn't have many spares. Just not at all practical.

Now though, after seeing what Charron had been able to do to her other weapons, Lara thought she might have found a use for it. Hopefully it would work as well on magicians as it was supposed to on demons.

At a signal from Lomax, Simon turned the door's handle and kicked it open. 

_Well, this is it._ They went in hard, guns blazing.

* * *

The line of images from the headset cameras turned instantly to static and the only sound in Emil's ears was a hissing crackle. The shielding on the rooms no doubt, but he could feel his heart thudding in his chest at the sudden loss of contact.

He absolutely detested this end of the job. Watching, monitoring, but with no direct say in the outcome. It felt worse even than having to face the bullets; there, at least, the adrenaline didn't give you much time for worry. At least not until afterwards.

Just now he could feel himself sweating; the flow of seconds slowed to a crawl. A quick glance over his shoulder showed Joanna – coolly impassive as always.

Earlier there'd had been. . . well, a free and frank exchange of views.

She'd made it abundantly clear that she didn't much trust Lara, and that she trusted her new mercenary hirelings even less. Privately Emil had to admit that he shared her doubts on that last score, although they appeared to have good reason for their sudden change of sides.

She'd been even more vocal in her displeasure at being relegated to a support role. It wasn't how they'd worked, she'd claimed. Their superiors wouldn't sanction such a thing. . . Privately he suspected that her displeasure was centred more on the fact that she was being denied another shot at revenge, or whatever, but he'd wisely kept quiet about that.

He hadn't kept quiet about her physical condition – how it had nearly got them killed yesterday. The look in her eyes. . . He shuddered. The ice in her voice as she'd explained she was now absolutely fine had been bad enough even without that.

Now, though, she appeared the consummate professional – completely under control.

_What the hell was that?_

A soft sound at the edge of his perception. A very faint metallic clunk, almost drowned out by the hiss of static in his ears.

Then there was a second sound, much more audible. It sounded like. . . _the central locking?_

Suddenly he was scrambling out of his seat and clambering through into the driver's compartment. Joanna said something to him but his concentration was too fixed for him to work out what. It'd wait.

He checked one mirror. Nothing. The other side. A man hurrying away across the street.

_Oh shit._

The doors were locked and the catch wouldn't budge in his grasp. _Shit. Shit. Shit._ . . He gave up on it and instead kicked out the side window, a shard of glass slicing through the leg of his jeans and raking along his calf-muscle.

"Get out!" He yelled back at Joanna – saw her go instantly for the back door. "No. This way! It's locked!" Then he was scrambling through the broken window, desperate to get clear, scarcely noticing as another shard of glass sliced along the side of his ribcage.

Gasping, he finally fell clear onto the pavement. 

Behind him Joanna had already managed to slither halfway through the shattered window. Dripping blood he forced himself to his feet, grasping hold of her outstretched arm and helping pull her the rest of the way. . .

Around the other side of the van the device that had been magnetically clamped, directly underneath the fuel tank, beeped once at the receipt of a radio signal. Then it detonated.

The initial explosion was small and insignificant. A fraction of a second later though, the fuel tank caught and erupted.

That explosion was anything but small and insignificant.

* * *

Carnage.

The sound of gunfire rose in a deafening crescendo, bullets ripping through the air in swarms. One of Charron's men was thrown back against the wall, juddering violently as he collapsed to the floor beside three others who had already preceded him into the realm of death. The last could only gasp as the top of his skull was ripped off, blood and brain tissue spraying in an arc across the wall behind him. His gun discharged, blowing out one of the ceiling lights in a spray of sparks.

It was all over inside five seconds. The silence that followed seemed to reverberate.

Hicks was bleeding from two bullet wounds, one in the right side of his chest having just missed his lung, the second no more than a nick to his bicep. He didn't seem to have noticed the injuries yet – the massive trauma his body had previously undergone had stripped him of much of his capacity to feel pain.

The rest of them were unscathed. Something that seemed almost impossibly unlikely given the condition of the room around them.

Walls were riddled with bullet-holes, a line of abstract paintings shredded with only a few shattered fragments of frame still hanging. Plant pots had been shattered, spilling earth and forlorn looking vegetation across the carpet. The surface of the long meeting table that dominated the room was a cratered mess.

Lara's gaze fixed on the door leading deeper inside. Its lock had been shattered and it was swinging slowly open.

"Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" The cry went up as soon as they burst through into the room beyond.

Lara quickly took in the scene.

One tall be-suited man wearing dark glass and carrying a familiar looking walking stick topped by a jewel of amber. A second glance showed him to be considerably more heavyset than Luke Charron, and besides, have two legs. Standing near him was another man, this one in a blonde wig and wearing a suit that, from its style and cut, was intended for a woman. The third person in the room was another bodyguard. It was him who'd cried out.

"Where the fuck's Charron?" Lomax demanded as he none too gently disarmed the man. Simon and Hicks – dripping blood on the floor – did the same to the other too.

"He was never here." Lara answered before the man got a chance, a horrible certainty growing inside her. She was looking at the stretcher Emil and Joanna had observed being carried in. Beneath a blanket and strapped securely down there was a dummy of the sort usually found in shop windows. "This was all just a decoy. A set-up."

From the corridor outside came the sound of numerous pairs of rapidly approaching feet.

* * *

Just over a mile away at London City Airport a privately owned BAe 146 jet began to taxi slowly down the short runway.

In a window seat under the plane's high mounted wing a face could be seen looking out into the night, the lights of the city reflecting and distorting in the lenses of his dark glasses.

Just now, through the connection he was holding inside his head, he'd felt the trap he'd set spring. Soon now it would be over, any opposition eliminated. Smiling, he allowed himself to let go of the connection. It really wasn't important any more.

Ahead of him lay Greece, and there. . . there lay the culmination of all his hard work.

* * *

The three decoys were shoved bodily through the door, which was then slammed shut behind them. Immediately Lara, Simon and Hicks – still not seeming to notice he'd been shot – dragged a heavy couch across to block it.

A second or so later gunfire erupted on the other side and the three of them jumped back for cover. Bullets punched through the wood with enough force to blow out the windows behind them in showers of glass. After a second or so the gunfire fell silent and someone or something slammed into the door hard enough to shake the wall around it. For the moment it held.

"Lara Croft?"

A male voice she didn't recognise. Certainly not Charron's.

"Yes?" She answered cautiously.

"My name is Strickland. I am empowered to accept your surrender."

"How nice."

"I'm also empowered to kill you, should I wish. Your choice. I should point out that you and your friends are cornered with no route of escape."

Simon was in the process of stripping the blanket from the stretcher with the dummy in, twisting it so it just about resembled a short rope, then knotting it to the radiator just beneath the broken windows. Lara looked away from him, back at the bullet-riddled door.

"So Mr. Strickle," deliberately getting the name wrong. "What happens after I surrender? You give me a nice cup of tea and send me merrily on my way?"

"Hardly. We wait for the police to arrive and take you off our hands."

_Bollocks_. They had much too much to explain to dare risk involving the police. No, a bullet to the back of the head was about what she expected 'surrender' to entail. "I'll have to consult with my colleagues you understand?"

Strickland said something else, but she ignored him, instead looking across at Lomax. The American gave her a twisted little half-smile. "Croft, if we get out of this remind me never to come within a hundred miles of you, ever again."

Simon had finished securing the impromptu rope and lowered it out of the window. It stretched just about far enough to reach the next window below, but still left a three-storey drop to the ground.

As Simon looked back at them Lomax indicated for him – the heaviest of them – to go first. With a nod he dropped out of sight, the blanket going taut but holding. A second or so later there was the sound of breaking glass. Hicks went next, leaving a bloody handprint behind on the windowsill, then Lomax, struggling with his injured hand but managing to make it without slipping. That left Lara on her own.

"Well? What's your answer?" Strickland's voice again.

"Give a girl a chance darling. It's such a hard decision."

"I'm warning you. . ."

Lara was already swinging her leg out the window and grasping hold of the blanket, moving quickly, hand over hand down its length. Behind her Strickland apparently ran out of patience. She heard gunfire erupt again, followed by the sound of someone slamming something repeatedly against the door, wood splintering. Lara reached the end of the blanket and swung through into the room below, landing cat-like in a crouch.

The three mercenaries had already moved on ahead. She paused a moment to pull the MP5 from over her shoulder – her demon-hunting pistol seemed as if it was going prove useless after all – then moved to follow.

This Strickland character apparently had at least some idea of what he was doing though. As Lara was stepping out into the corridor another door burst open between her and the mercenaries, a volley of bullets effectively cutting them off from each other.

She ducked back into the cover of the office. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the three mercenaries sprinting away along the corridor. Cursing under her breath she fired a short burst through the door the gunfire had originated from.

There was a startled yelp, but if she'd hit anyone it was likely no more than a graze. Then a gun barrel came into view and more bullets came back her way. Fired blind they did nothing more than punch a line of holes in the wall about three feet to her left, but they kept her pinned. She could hear more footsteps pounding down the stairs beyond that door – additional guards coming to join their friends. By now Strickland had, no doubt, discovered the empty office.

_Damn_. If they managed to pin her here for long they'd have her – one way or another. And she wasn't sure how long Lomax would bother waiting for her once he reached the boat.

Firing another burst of bullets at her assailants as a distraction, she darted from cover in a low crouch, then broke into an all out sprint. 

By the time they'd collected their wits enough to think about returning fire she was almost at the corridor's end – albeit the opposite one to that which the mercenaries had taken. Even as they were taking aim at her unprotected back she was diving headlong through another door leading onto a stairwell. The bullets stitched it as it swung shut behind her.

Lara was on her feet instantly, able to hear sounds of pursuit.

Running down the stairs she rounded the corner onto the next mini-landing, only to find herself face to face with three more armed guards coming in the opposite direction.

She didn't hesitate. Even as surprise was registering on their faces she leapt straight at them. Booted feet landed squarely in the centre of the chests of the first two, knocking them tumbling backwards. As they fell they managed to collect the third of them, following close behind.

Lara landed lightly on her feet on the next landing down. They didn't. As they came crashing to a halt two of them were silent and still – unconscious or worse – while the third was groaning loudly in pain.

Two flights up, the door burst open and another volley of bullets rang out, ricocheting wildly off the walls and stair railings. Lara got moving again.

At the bottom of the stairs she emerged into a warehouse area, high metal storage shelves looming on either side of her. Her footsteps echoed off the concrete floor as she ran. 

More gunfire rang out behind her, though it was no more accurate than before, raising splinters of shrapnel from the floor and sparks from the nearby shelves. She returned fire blindly in a low raking arc, slightly surprised when she heard someone cry out and go down. Then her clip came up empty.

She managed to get into the cover of a pile of stacked crates as yet another volley of bullets came back at her.

As she slotted a fresh 30 round clip into place Lara could feel a cool draft on the back of her head, stirring a few stray strands of her hair. A quick glance over her shoulder showed a large door, opening onto the courtyard and unloading docks where the boat awaited. One problem though. There was at least thirty yards of completely open ground to cover. Even a team of blind monkeys would have difficulty missing her as she crossed it.

She looked back.

One of the guards had unwisely decided to try sneaking up on her. His legs were all too visible through a gap in the shelves. He screamed as she shot his kneecaps out.

As he tried to drag himself back towards his comrades, leaving a slug-trail of blood in his wake, Lara could have easily put a bullet in his head. She didn't, though it wasn't out of any kindness. An injured victim was much more useful as a distraction than a corpse.

_Okay, what next dear?_

Apart from the wounded man's whimperings an uneasy silence had fallen, no one for the moment showing any desire to move from their position and risk getting shot. Lara could feel her breathing returning towards normal, her gaze moving around her surroundings in an effort to spot something that she could use to her advantage. She was acutely aware of every passing moment.

There, behind the next row of shelves. She stopped and stared.

It was a forklift, bright yellow in colour. An idea blossomed, which even she was tempted to dismiss as insane. . . Nothing else suggested itself as an alternative however.

Her gaze snapped back towards her assailants. One of them was cautiously poking his head up out of cover.

She squeezed off a single bullet, but it seemed like the man had some kind of sixth sense. He was ducking even before she'd even finished pulling the trigger and she missed. It did, however, add further dissuasion from anyone else trying anything.

She came to a decision.

As quickly and quietly as she could she started crawling towards the forklift, striving to keep the cover between her and the guards. No outcry immediately rose up, and no shots rang out, though Lara half-expected it with every moment that passed.

From somewhere else in the building yet more gunfire erupted, followed up a muffled explosion – a grenade going off perhaps. Lara instinctively froze for a second, before forcing herself to continue. The mercenaries running into similar trouble to herself no doubt.

By the time she reached the forklift her nerves felt shredded, although no one else seemed to be any the wiser about it. She pulled herself up into the seat, and came immediately across the glaring flaw in her plan she'd so far missed. 

No ignition key.

Her initial urge was to abandon the idea. She fought it down, her gaze touching a metal box beneath the steering wheel. Quickly she broke it open, the sound loud enough to make her heart leap into her mouth. 

An old friend from finishing school had once shown her how to hotwire a car, and she'd had the opportunity to put the lessons into practice on several occasions in the eleven years since. More useful certainly than the other 'how to get out of a sports car without flashing your knickers' type things she'd learnt there anyway. 

Lara quickly came to the conclusion it was a lot more difficult than she remembered it being. The engine stubbornly refused to start, borderline panic getting stronger every passing second. Finally, unexpectedly, she put the correct two wires together and the engine roared into life. She hissed between her teeth as a flying spark burnt her fingers.

Suddenly there was uproar. Shouts of alarm and bullets were flying; the sound of running feet.

Lara ducked low over the forklift's steering wheel as bullets pinged off its frame, swiftly reversing several yards to get something of a run up. Then she surged forwards, directly at the shelves, as fast as she could get the thing to go.

The collision jolted violently through her, her teeth clashing together hard as she clung on tight. For a moment nothing much seemed to happen. Then there was a harsh shriek of tearing metal. Slowly – almost gracefully – the shelf she'd hit began to topple.

Lara heard several panic-filled screams as the guards caught between the shelves realised what was happening.

All the contents of the shelves slid free in a solid rush, falling as a devastating avalanche. Then there was an almighty crash – this shelf striking the next one in line. A chain-reaction started and the entire row went down like a line of dominoes, one after the other in an ever-accelerating collapse.

After it was over the silence was almost as echoing as the uproar. Lara felt momentarily stunned. There were no more sounds of approaching feet, or shouts, or gunfire.

She quickly shook off the lethargy. She'd bought herself a few seconds – no more. Leaping off the still running forklift, she sprinted across the open space towards the door. Nothing moved to stop her. No one shot at her. 

Crossing the yard, she darted from one piece of available cover to the next, but there was still no sign of any pursuit. She made it back to the jetty and the waiting boat, unscathed and seemingly unnoticed. 

* * *

Travis was waiting, watching her approach.

"Where are the others?" He demanded as she jumped on board.

"We got split up. They knew we were coming somehow."

Travis just grunted.

"They should be here any time." Lara had been expecting to find them here already after that delay in the warehouse.

As if to counterpoint what she was saying there was a distinctly audible burst of gunfire from the building. Another explosion followed, considerably louder and stronger than the first one she'd heard.

She was staring at the building's ground floor where several windows had just been blown out, smoke trails rising into the air. "They like blowing things up don't. . .ugh"

While she was talking Travis had moved round behind her, unnoticed. He hit her hard across the back of the neck.

Taken completely by surprise, Lara went down hard, sprawling half across the boat's side, her braid trailing in the dirty river-water. She only retained even a fingernail grip on consciousness because the boat had shifted slightly just as Travis struck, his blow not connecting quite as solidly as he'd intended. 

As she lay there her head gyrated wildly. It still hadn't quite registered quite what had happened.

Suddenly she was being yanked upright again and flung through the air. The breath went out of her as she landed hard.

A shadow loomed over her. Her eyes found it difficult to focus. "Fucking bitch. Lomax must be going soft in the head." Then Travis kicked her.

Lara tried to twist away, but too late. Agony exploded through the side of her ribcage, instinctively curling her up into a protective ball. 

"Not so fucking tough now are you?" She managed to half roll away from the next kick so it only clipped her on the hip. "Think your clever don't you? Making me look stupid in front of the others. Getting Langer wasted. And now you somehow got both Cuz _and_ the English faggot eating out of your hand."

He kicked again, this time catching her on the side of the thigh, numbing her entire leg. The pain cleared her head somewhat. "I'm going show you just how fucking clever you are."

As he drew back for another vicious kick, this one aimed at her head, Lara caught hold of his standing leg and yanked.

Travis staggered backwards, letting out a small noise of surprise. He managed to catch his balance at the last moment though, stopping himself from tumbling backwards, over the side. "You'll regret that, bitch."

He bent to pick something up from the bottom of the boat – Lara didn't see what, too busy trying to free the pistol from the holster at her hip. As he raised whatever it was above his head she rolled over onto her back, aimed and fired in a single motion.

The bullet took him a couple of inches beneath his collarbone, exiting from his back in a spray of blood. The object in his hand dropped from fingers gone suddenly nerveless and fell into the river with a loud splash.

For a moment he simply stood there, backlit by the complex's bright lights, gaping in surprise. Then Lara kicked out, sweeping his legs out from under him. He went over backwards, his skull striking the edge of the jetty with a sickening crack as he fell between it and the boat.

Water closed over his head. He didn't come up again.

Lara hauled herself onto her knees, staring at the patch of water where Travis had disappeared. Still nothing stirred. _Made for fighting demons_: she recalled the words about her pistol. Perhaps it had meant metaphorical ones.

She looked up at a small creaking sound. Lomax, standing watching her. His expression was grim and she noted blood running down the same arm that he'd injured yesterday. Their eyes locked.

No question that he'd seen what had happened to his cousin. There was a cold, scary calm in his expression that made her shudder.

She managed to raise her gun before he did. "Drop it."

He bared his teeth at her but complied, placing his Beretta pistol on the jetty in front of his feet. "A strange way to treat your employees don't you think? Holding a gun on them. _Killing_ one of them."

"Lomax, I'm sorry. He didn't give me a whole lot of choice." _And I don't notice you leaping in to try and save him._ Not, she knew, that it would do any good at this point.

"No choice." He smiled. Lara realised that the apparent calm was nothing more than a very thin veneer holding back murderous rage. "You've been wanting to settle a score with him since you escaped."

"Me? He jumped me when my back was turned. I was defending myself." She saw immediately that he wasn't going to believe her.

"_He was my cousin!_" A shuddering breath, his good hand clenching momentarily into a fist. "My blood. I can't let that pass."

Lara rose to feet, pain spiking through her side where Travis had kicked her. She moved to stand by the boat's controls not taking the gun off Lomax for a second. _How had everything gone so wrong?_ "Lomax. Don't be stupid. We need to get out of here. Get in the boat. I'll pay you what I owe, and our deal is cancelled. Okay?"

He made no move to get in the boat. Behind him she saw Simon and Hicks reach the jetty. Hicks was apparently now, finally, starting to feel the bullets he'd taken, leaning against Simon for support. The two of them slowed when they took in the scene in front of them, hanging warily back. They both knew trouble when they saw it.

"You should shoot me. You really should." Deadly quiet.

For an instant, sheer teeth grinding frustration almost made her do what he said. "Stop being such an idiot. Now isn't the bloody time!" A wordless glance over Lomax's shoulder at Simon, pleading for help. Simon's face twisted. He spread his hands and shrugged. Apologised.

"I swear I'm going to kill you Croft. What I should have done in the first place. Why I thought. . ."

Trying to provoke her, like he actually wanted to be shot; an edge of madness. She cut him off by starting the boat's engine. "Lomax. Get in or I leave you. Simple as that. This is going to get us all killed."

He made no response. Lara looked to Simon and Hicks again, but it was immediately clear that they weren't going to abandon their boss, no matter what their personal feelings on this. She suddenly wanted to scream.

Seconds passed with no movement, Lomax's eyes just boring into her. A shout came from somewhere near the building. No more time.

"Okay, I'm sorry. I really am." So saying Lara pushed down the throttle and swung the boat around.

Lomax's gaze followed her all the way until she disappeared from view down the Thames.

End of Part 2

The story will be concluded in "Hell Hath no Fury Part 3 – Tisiphone"

   [1]: mailto:trad50@yahoo.co.uk



	3. Part 3 - Tisiphone

****

Interlude II -David (1994)

Gatwick airport. Hectic, as always in the summer months – though no more so than a hundred other international airports Lara had passed through.

She walked slowly along the concourse, watching the flow of people passing around her and feeling somehow detached from it all. Sometimes she thought she measured out her life by the time she spent passing through airports – punctuation stops between the chapters of her existence. Probably it should have been a depressing thought.

She was wearing red-tinted sunglasses, even though the British summertime was, as usual, intent on proving itself an oxymoron. It wasn't raining yet, although from the look of the heavily overcast sky that was only a matter of time. The air was hardly cold, but after the scorching temperatures of Greece it felt decidedly chill on her bare arms.

Coming home always felt strange.

David was waiting for her. Lara managed to spot him before he saw her. He was standing with a loose line of others, clearly waiting to greet disembarking passengers. She thought that he looked bored.

In his mid forties, David was eighteen years older than she was. Tanned with sandy dark-blonde hair, he had the sort of rugged good looks that meant he could easily pass for ten years younger – except when he laughed or smiled, showing the fine lines around his eyes. He looked exactly like what he was; a rich person trying to dress down – designer jeans and a work shirt, sleeves rolled up around his elbows.

Next to him was a family holding a hand drawn banner. 'Welcome home Darren!!!' it said, slightly manically. 

_Lucky Darren_.

David finally spotted her, raising a hand in a slightly self-conscious wave, grinning at her.

She raised her hand in return and managed to force an unconvincing smile of her own. It should have been one of those Kodak moments; lovers reunited after a month's separation. The urge to race across the space separating them and throw herself into his waiting arms was noticeable only by its absence though. 

She should, she supposed, have been pleased that he'd taken the trouble to come and meet her. But she didn't. Instead she felt curiously impugned, as if this was an unwanted intrusion. Her attempts to force the feeling down were not particularly successful.

The hug of greeting felt – to her at least – strained and half-hearted. The kiss was perfunctory, and she found herself concentrating more on the taste of his breath freshener than anything else. The fire was completely lacking – not even a spark.

It was her, she realised as he released her. Physically nothing was different, but the emotion that had gone with it seemed to have died – or at best gone dormant. It left her feeling slightly distraught.

"Lara!" He was beaming broadly at her – if he felt the same as she did he was doing a very good job of covering it. "You look fabulous. So tanned. So healthy. Missed you loads."

"Missed you too Dave." Part of her called herself a liar. "Slow day at the office I take it?"

"I could hardly have let you turn up with no one to meet you, could I? The magazine will survive without me." David edited a rock-climbing magazine. Climbing had been the major passion of his life – still was really, even though circumstances meant he didn't get to do it much now.

"Well I appreciate it." Lara forced another smile. Damn, this was excruciating.

She reminded herself that it was always difficult when she'd just returned from a trip. It inevitably took her a day or so to get back in the swing of things and become accustomed to dealing with human beings again. What she was feeling now would pass. _At least it had better_.

"That all the luggage you've got?" He made to take the shoulder bag she was carrying.

She stopped him. "It's okay Dave, I can manage." Much better than him, if truth be told.

"No, no. I insist."

She let him take it with an inward sigh. One thing about David – he came from an age and upbringing where a chivalrous streak was ingrained. It seemed to offend some deep seated sensibilities for him to see a woman carrying her own bags, or having to open a door for herself. She vacillated between finding it sweet and annoying. Right now she was leaning distinctly towards the annoying.

As they started walking he slipped an arm around her waist, his hand resting on her hip.

It felt slightly odd; a touch too possessive for what she wanted right now. It took a conscious effort to stop herself from simply shrugging free of him. 

_Bloody hell, there's something wrong with you girl._

"So, how was it? Enjoy yourself?" Behind them cries of welcome rose up. Apparently Darren had showed up after all.

"Well it certainly wasn't dull." Finally she found herself able to produce a smile that wasn't forced. "Yep, I had fun." _Almost got killed, but had fun_.

"I wish I could come with you on one of these trips." Casual, off the cuff; almost jokey.

Lara knew that it wasn't. Whatever his tone, he was serious. She felt something clench inside her and deliberately didn't give any response – as if the comment had passed completely unnoticed over her head. The way she was feeling she didn't want to get into this. It would end up as an argument, and right now that wouldn't turn out well.

"How about you? Anything exciting happen back here?"

David laughed. "Hardly. Same old dull England. My brother's divorce finally came through." David's brother had been living away from his wife and two children with his lover – another man – for the past six months. "Everyone's going through the motions of feeling scandalised again, but you can tell their hearts' aren't in it. Nothing else I can think of even qualifies as remotely interesting."

Lara had met both David's brother and his – now ex – wife. Privately she considered both of them infinitely better off separated. Of course one was supposed to feel sorry for the children and all that . . . Did it make her a heartless bitch that she just didn't care?

"So, did the two of you time it deliberately? Both scandalise the family together to take the heat off one another?" She knew that David's family – a vast and sprawling empire – had rather a dim view of his affair with someone just about young enough to be his daughter. And especially someone with _her_ reputation.

"Well I think it surprised them. They had me down as the gay one."

"I can give them a written reference on that one if you like."

He laughed again. "I'll bear it in mind."

Thankfully some of the stiltedness was starting to fade. "So, nothing on other fronts then?" The question was framed casually.

They emerged from the terminal building. It was just as dull outside as it appeared from within. Lara felt cold and depressed.

"Not a thing."

_Was that too dismissive? Too casual?_ Probably just her current warped mood. She glanced across at the profile of his face. His expression seemed a trifle pensive.

"You run into any problems then Lara?" Their eyes met, and veiled as it was, she saw concern there.

"_He_ showed up, like I thought he might." She knew he meant well, but she wasn't sure she appreciated concern.

"But you're okay, right? Aren't you Lara? Nothing too bad happened to you?"

_You can come out and ask about it David. I won't mind. I won't take it as an indication that you care more about the artefact than me_. She held the words back, even though she knew that was exactly the dilemma he was edging around inside his head. 

"We had a bit of an altercation. I got the best of it." _For once_. "No one else got hurt." She shrugged as if it had been nothing – not even worth the effort of commenting on. "Don't worry, I got what I went for."

"That's a relief . . . Er, I mean about you being okay and no one getting hurt . . ."

"Dave," she smiled tolerantly at him. "I won't mind if you're interested in whether I got the job done you know. You don't have to tread on eggshells around me."

"It's just that I don't want you to think I care more about some hunk of rock or metal, or whatever than you . . ."

Lara cut him off by kissing him again, mainly because it was the quickest way she could think of ending this particular line of conversation without being tactless. "Dave, you don't have to worry about that, honestly. If you're good I might even let you see her."

"Her?" He raised an eyebrow.

"Patience." 

They'd arrived at his car – a black Porsche 911 Carrera convertible. The top was down despite the overcast conditions. Lara immediately eased out of his grasp and moved around to the driver's side door.

"You're asking for it to get nicked leaving it like this you know."

David shrugged. "I've only been gone fifteen-twenty minutes."

"Thirty seconds is too long around here. Still, not my car." She extended a hand to him. "Keys."

He rolled his eyes, but dug into the pocket of his jeans and flipped them across to her anyway. "Just be a bit more careful with her this time, okay?"

Lara caught the keys deftly. "Don't worry. I'll treat her like she was my own."

David gave a mock shudder. "Now I am worried."

"Hah. Coward. Get in."

* * *

"You know about speed limits, Lara?" David's white-knuckled grip on the dashboard finally relaxed as the Porsche came to a halt beside the fountain in front of Lara's home.

"Hmmh? What about them?"

"Well for starters they're meant to be _maximum_ speed limits. Not minimum ones."

"Really?" Her reply was airy. "I'll take it under advisement." She turned the engine off and got out.

David took her bag out from where it had been stowed behind the seats. She watched him critically. His movements seemed easy enough and there was no sign of stiffness. He was good at hiding it though. He didn't enjoy other people's sympathy.

"We were being followed you know."

He didn't manage to hide the slight start. "You're sure?" He looked back at the gates behind them, as if expecting to see their pursuer, lurking.

"Believe me, anyone who manages to keep up with my driving for more than ten miles isn't doing it by accident." She followed his gaze. "They turned off about a mile before we got here. Wanted to be sure where we were going I'd guess."

"Ah." He turned back to her. "So you were driving like that to loose them then – not just trying to kill us."

"Oh no, I drive like that because I enjoy it."

"I'm older than you, you know. I have to worry about things like my heart."

"Poor dear." Lara started towards the front door. "Did you manage to find out who hired Du Pont after all?"

David followed her. "It looks like someone called Avery Rose. The man I've got working on it hasn't been able to confirm though." 

"Avery Rose." Lara experienced a sinking feeling. Just what they needed. "Figures."

"You know him then?"

Oh yes, she knew him all right. Too bloody well. "Worked for him once."

"Oh yes?"

"Not a pleasant man, believe me. Granted, he didn't actually double cross me or go back on a deal or anything, which is a small point in his favour. But he left me feeling like I'd been wading neck deep in raw sewage. Didn't take kindly when I told him that either."

David chuckled.

"Him and Du Pont are just perfect for each other." The sinking feeling got a little deeper. The fact that someone knew enough to be following them implied that Du Pont had probably survived. She hid a grimace.

"I'm told that he's an arms dealer. A dangerous man to get on the wrong side of by the sounds of it. You think the person following us is one of his?"

"I certainly hope so."

"You hope so?" He sounded a touch incredulous.

"Well, if it's not we've a third party we don't know anything about after us."

David grunted in reluctant agreement. 

Lara paused for a moment, realising her keys were somewhere in the bag David was carrying. Just as she was about to knock, the door opened in front of her anyway.

"Winston!" She held back from hugging her old butler, knowing that it would only embarrass him – especially with someone else present. She also managed a fair job of ignoring the small, dry voice contrasting her reaction to seeing David at the airport.

"Ma'am. It's good to have you back." He inclined his head respectfully as he saw David. "Mr. Chisholm."

"Winston."

"So Dave, are you going to leave your car like that?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

She extended a hand, palm upwards, out of the cover of the porch. "Started raining."

Cursing beneath his breath, David turned and ran back to the car in an effort to get the top up before the interior got drenched.

* * *

After Lara dumped her luggage, had a quick shower and put on a change of clothes, they went out again, into London. By this time the rain had stopped and a few small fragments of blue sky were showing through the cloud cover

This time she drove a lot more conservatively, smooth and unhurried and keeping almost within speed limits. They were followed again, she noticed, though this time the pursuer did a considerably better job of it than before. If she hadn't been specifically looking for it she'd have never spotted the silver Ford Mondeo, always several cars back.

When she pointed it out to David he became rather agitated, glancing repeatedly over his shoulder. Not, she gathered, as used to this sort of thing as she was. Eventually she snapped at him to sit still and stop fidgeting.

"Yes mother."

"So what are we going to do about it?" He asked about a minute later.

"Nothing."

"Nothing?" She saw him shaking his head in the mirror. "You amaze me sometimes Lara. How can you be so blasé?"

"Well what do you want me to do about it darling?" Despite the fact that he was eighteen years older than she was he could be touchingly naïve in some things. _Or is the word aggravating?_ A smile cracked across her face. "I can try to lose them if you like." She put her foot down and watched the speedometer needle smoothly rise.

"Er, no. It's okay," he hastened. "I'm sure you know best."

She let the speed fall again. "Look, the best thing we can do is continue absolutely normally and ignore them. Act like we're completely unaware of their presence. At the moment they seem content just to watch us. If they realise we're onto them they may decide to do something unpredictable."

After a moment he asked: "What happens when they decide to do more than just watch?"

"They find out that they've made a very big mistake." Her tone was grim.

David muttered something. "I don't like this, you know. It's . . ." He seemed to be groping for the correct words. "It's very irritating."

"So's your auntie Nora. You manage to put up with her don't you?"

"Barely Lara. Barely."

They had lunch together at a new Japanese restaurant in Islington, and David managed to do a pretty good job of ignoring the fact they were still being watched. Either that or he forgot about it. She wasn't entirely sure which.

Afterwards they went to a flat he owned in Fulham. He didn't spend much time there and the interior showed it, less than half the rooms even decorated. The bed was large and well sprung though, and for their purposes that was all that mattered.

To start with it was mainly dutiful on her part – mimicking what she thought two lovers who'd been separated for the larger part of a month should be doing – the detached feeling she'd had in the airport still lingering. She quickly warmed to it though, and second time through went much better. Third was just plain good.

Now Lara was sitting half propped up in bed, a sheet wrapped loosely around her. The sun had finally decided to show itself in earnest, shining in through the window and across her. As she listened to the shower running she felt warm and content, twining a strand of hair around one of her fingers and rocking gently back and forth.

Ironic she thought idly, that men reached their sexual peak at nineteen when, quite frankly, most of them were completely hopeless at it. God must have been having a right laugh with that one. By the time they got any good they could no longer keep up like they once had.

She stretched and yawned – catlike. Not that David did badly. She allowed herself a grin. Quite the reverse in fact. A surge of affection and fondness filled her and she closed her eyes, her muscles languid and sleepy.

_Not love though,_ a small voice whispered. Or at least not love in the way she had always imagined it would be. She chased the errant thought away. Just now it wasn't welcome.

She heard the shower stop, then David's footsteps. After a moment she could feel him watching her. When she opened her eyes he was standing, leaning against the doorframe, a white towel wrapped around his waist and dripping water on the carpet.

He was smiling at her, and she found herself smiling back at him in turn instinctively. Crossing the space between them he brushed the hair back from her face and kissed her on the forehead. "Love you."

She kept on smiling, but inside felt her heart thud – couldn't make herself say the words back. _What do I feel?_

Something had definitely changed.

He didn't seem to notice anything amiss. "So, do you think I've been sufficiently good yet?"

"Hmmh?" She leant back, stretching again, failing to get the question.

"You said if I was good you'd let me see what you found."

"Oh, go on then." She shifted over onto her side, watching him as he walked across to where the bag she'd brought with her lay.

The first thing he lifted out was a stainless steel Browning HP35 pistol. He turned to her and raised an eyebrow.

"I think you still need some work on that Roger Moore impression."

"Ha, ha, very funny. Do you take this everywhere?"

Lara affected a shrug. "I'd feel naked without it."

"Is it loaded?"

"Well it isn't going to do much good if it's not, is it?"

He put it aside quickly, as if he'd suddenly found out he was handling a poisonous snake. Lara noticed that his hand shook fractionally.

"How have you been?" Suddenly her tone was serious. "I haven't asked you that yet."

Something passed across his expression that was gone too quickly for her to tell precisely what it was. She could guess though. It seemed to her that he thought that if he somehow didn't let himself acknowledge its existence, the arthritis would go away.

"Can't complain. Pretty good all things considered. There hasn't been a bad one."

He was lying. She saw that immediately. There had been bad 'ones' all right. And probably several of them. The arthritis affected his shoulder joints, and to a lesser extent his hands. Usually it was manageable, but occasionally it flared up, for hours or even days at a time.

"That's good." She decided not to press him just now.

He lifted out the plastic box. "This is it?"

"Yep."

His tongue flicked out briefly to moisten his lips. "I'm not sure I can bring myself to look."

"Up to you, but rather a wasted trip if you don't, don't you think?"

He'd already taken the box's lid off despite his words though. She heard his breath catch. "It's magnificent," he breathed. The shake in his hands was even more pronounced, though Lara got the impression that was nothing to do with his condition. He seemed genuinely awe-struck.

"Interesting certainly." Lara felt that magnificent was something of an overstatement.

"So light." He turned it slowly over in his hands, poring intently over every millimetre of its verdegrised surface. "Hollow?"

"It would seem so."

"What's she made out of?"

"As far as I can figure? Brass."

He nodded, as if it made perfect sense. "Yes, she would be."

"That doesn't surprise you? She should be bronze. The Greeks of that period didn't use brass to sculpt with."

A trace of a smile played across his lips. "The Erinyes were supposed to have wings and talons made from brass. It's natural the sculptor would have chosen brass." He hesitated a moment. "In order to honour her."

Lara frowned. For a moment she'd had the impression he'd been going to say something else.

"Do you know if she definitely is Megaera, like we thought?"

"Circumstantial evidence would suggest so, but . . . There's not much in the way of lore available on how to distinguish between the three sisters. In theory she could be any one of them."

"But if you had to hazard a guess . . ."

"Respected archaeologists do not hazard guesses," Lara responded primly. Sheet still wrapped loosely around her, she got up and padded across to the window, gazing out at the street below. "But since I'm about as far from a respected archaeologist as you can get . . . I'd say it very likely is Megaera."

There was someone standing on the street corner, smoking. He caught her eye. She'd seen him before . . . Her attention fixed on him, she didn't see David's reaction to her words.

"Do you mind if I take her in to a friend of mine. He can run some tests. Find out for certain what she is made from; get a dating; maybe even see if there's anything inside her . . ."

"Why would I mind?" Lara's reply was distracted. Suddenly she turned from the window, dropping the sheet and dashing across the room to where her clothes were piled.

"Lara?" David had finally put the figurine down, turning to watch her in complete bemusement as she pulled on her clothes.

"That man standing on the street corner." She finished buttoning up the front of her trousers then pulled her top on over her head. "No, don't look!"

David caught himself. "What's going on?" He sounded confused.

"At the restaurant. Sitting on his own in the corner, smoking. You remember?"

"Vaguely I think. I wasn't really paying attention . . ."

"Well it's the same man." Lara sounded grim, finishing pulling on her black leather ankle boots. "Be a love and pass me my gun."

David balked. "What was this about ignoring them? Of carrying on as if they weren't there?"

"I experienced an abrupt change of mind. Isn't that what women are supposed to be like? Flighty and unpredictable." She leant past him and took the pistol without waiting for him to make up his mind about it.

"Are you sure this is a good idea Lara?"

"No." Her tone was breezy. "It's probably a bad idea actually. But if they're going to try and tail us they could at least try to make a half-decent job of it. This – this is almost offensive." She gave the pistol a quick once over. "Besides, it's a good opportunity to extract some information."

"Lara, wait!"

She paused, looking back at him. "Hmmh? I think you should probably stay here, don't you David? You're likely to stand out a bit too much wearing just a towel. Back in a few minutes." After blowing him a perfunctory kiss, she walked out of the door.

* * *

He was still there, in the same place she'd seen him from the window.

Lara ran a hand through her disarrayed hair, glancing back at the flat and waving towards the bedroom window, trying to appear completely oblivious to his presence – completely unthreatening. She looked quickly at her watch, walking slowly and unhurriedly towards him; 3:43pm. 

He appeared to be concentrating solely on the cigarette he was smoking, though occasionally he would take a furtive sidelong glance at her. About five foot eight tall, he was somewhat overweight with a noticeable gut. She put his age around the late thirties. His skin was deeply tanned and he was wearing lightly tinted sunglasses – generally had a Mediterranean look about him.

There was a certain degree of tension about his posture, though he didn't appear overly suspicious of her yet. As she came level with him she casually dropped her keys on the pavement in front of him.

His eyes dropped, attention distracted. 

In that instant Lara struck. She grabbed hold of him by his tie, looping it quickly around his neck and using it to yank him backwards down the side street. There she slammed him hard against the wall and drove a knee into his midriff. As he tried to double over she yanked back on the tie again and his face began to turn slowly purple. Finally he started to struggle – until she pressed the barrel of her pistol beneath his near double chin.

"Afternoon. You've been a naughty boy, haven't you?"

His mouth worked but he couldn't force any sound out, his face turning an even deeper shade of purple. Finally Lara eased her grip on the tie a fraction, letting him gulp in deep breaths of air. "Pardon, I didn't quite catch that."

"I have money . . . My wallet . . . In my back pocket. Just don't shoot me. Please."

"Ah-Ah. Move that hand another inch and you won't have chance to regret it."

The hand that was moving towards his pocket froze.

"I'm not trying to rob you. And I know that you know I'm not trying to rob you." She reached inside his jacket and removed the snub-nosed revolver he was carrying in a shoulder holster.

"Please . . . I have a family."

Lara let out an audibly sigh. "Let's cut the innocent act shall we. You've been tailing me and my friend for over three hours now."

"I don't know what you're talking . . ." He was cut off as Lara yanked the tie tight again.

"Lets start again shall we? You were following me. Right?"

"Y-Yes."

"Better." She favoured him with a slanted smile. "Now, tell me, why were you following me?"

Silence.

"Cat got your tongue? Never mind. I can make a pretty good guess. Suffice to say, if you persist it's going to have a negative impact on your health. Understand?"

He managed to nod.

"Now I want you to do me a favour. As a way of making things up to me. Can you do that?"

"I . . .I . . ."

She gave another tug on the tie as encouragement.

"Yes. Yes. I'll do my best."

"What I want you to do – " She reached round and took his wallet from the back pocket, flipping it open " – Mr. Della-Ventura. Is that your real name? I guess it doesn't matter – is deliver a message for me. A message to your employer, Avery Rose."

"Who?"

Lara gave another exaggerated sigh. "Let's cut the dumb act, shall we Mr. Della-Ventura. You know exactly who I mean." She pushed the barrel of her pistol more firmly against the underside of his jaw, so that it left a circular imprint in his flesh.

"I don't. I don't. I swear!"

Someone passed by on the street, no more than four or five metres away. If they noticed what was going on they gave no sign.

"Okay," Lara said quietly once the person passed out of earshot. "If you don't work for Avery Rose, who do you work for?"

His expression had taken on a frantic look – skin waxen and greasy. "I can't tell you that! He'll kill me."

"Shame." Lara smiled brightly. "Because I'll kill you if you don't."

A pause.

"In broad daylight? In a public place? I don't think so." Suddenly he seemed to lose some of his fear. "Why don't you put the gun away? We both know you're not going to use it."

"How much do you want to bet? You've get seventy pounds cash here, so say we wager seventy pounds that I don't shoot you. That sound fair?"

"You're not scaring me." He managed something approximating a sneer. "Women don't have the guts. They can't stomach the blood."

"Now that really is a stupid notion. Have you ever witnessed a birth?" She shook her head. "I'll ask again. Who are you working for?"

"If you're not going to pull the trigger then why don't you stop wasting our time and let me go?" Managing to find a bit of bravado now.

"So, let me get this straight. You're asking me to pull the trigger?"

"Yes." This sneer was definite.

"Fair enough. If that's what you want." She pulled the trigger.

There was a click.

"Oh yes, that's right. I always keep the chamber empty when I'm transporting them. Avoids unpleasant accidents. Sorry about that. Would you like me to try again?" She pulled back the slide to chamber a round and her trigger finger tightened its grip.

"I can't tell you! I can't!" The veneer of bravado had completely fractured. She could feel him shaking.

"You know Mr. Della-Ventura, I think your logic could use some work. Here you are worrying about the hypothetical possibility of what _might_ happen to you if your boss finds out you've told me about him. What you should be worrying about is what is _definitely_ going to happen to you if you don't."

"You don't understand!"

"There's not much to understand is there? You've got a three count to give me a name." She stared into his eyes, expression hard and yielding.

"I . . ."

"One."

"Please. Be reasonable . . ."

"Two."

"I can't . . ."

"Three."

"Wait! Wait!"

Lara let out a breath. Incongruously a bird burst into song somewhere close by. "A name," she reminded him.

"A-Anton Wiegert."

"Very good. Thank you." She recognised the name – a Dutchman who used to be an enforcer in the Amsterdam underworld. Also an associate of Pierre Du Pont, who sometimes used Wiegert's men when he needed extra muscle to back him up. Not the sort of person who'd have much of an interest in a piece of ancient Greek sculpture in his own right, she thought. And given Du Pont's apparent allegiances, fairly strong evidence that Rose was the person pulling the strings. _If_ David's private investigator could be trusted.

"Perhaps you'd tell Mr. Wiegert I'd like to arrange a meeting with him. Straighten a few things out between the two of us."

"I can't tell him that!"

"No? Assuming I don't decide to shoot you, you'll have to tell him something. Your friend down the street is going to report that the two of us made contact." That was a guess – she hadn't seen any second person. All things considered though, she thought it was a fairly astute one. "I doubt he'll believe that we were making out."

He didn't say anything, but the look on his face told her she'd hit the mark.

"Well, run along then. There's a good boy." Lara patted him on the cheek, then released her grip on his tie and stepped back from him. 

For a moment he hesitated, one hand coming up to rub his throat. Then, when she gave an encouraging little motion with her pistol for him to get going, he took off. She watched his departing back as he scurried away until he had disappeared entirely from view.

* * *

"Lara, there's something wrong isn't there?"

She was standing in front of a pair of bay windows that opened onto a balcony, although all she could see was her lamp-lit reflection in the glass. She looked up at him. "Why do you say that?"

He was standing by the bed, bare-chested, the look on his face pensive. As she watched he started to pace. "Something's different since you came back. You seem . . . I don't know, distant somehow. Detached."

Lara didn't say anything. She couldn't think of anything she could say. _Probably the distance he's talking about_.

"Did you . . ." He hesitated. "Did you find someone else while you were out there?"

It took her a moment to grasp what he was asking. Then, briefly an image of Nikolas formed in her mind – Dasky. She almost smiled at the thought. "No," she said at length. "Hardly."

Apparently he read the delay answering as hesitation. "I won't blame you if you have. I know I am hardly . . ."

_Oh god, not now._ She cut him off before he could finish. "Dave, I was working. Doing a job. It wasn't Shirley bloody Valentine. Nights of passion with handsome Greek men were pretty low on the agenda."

"Sorry. I didn't mean to imply I don't trust you or anything."

_Don't trust me?_ Suddenly she was feeling annoyed. _I enjoy your company Dave. I'm not proposing to bloody marry you._ There were times when she found herself wondering if she was even the same species as most other human beings. She looked away from him, out of the window again.

"What is the matter then?" He walked up behind her and laid a hand on her shoulder.

Her response was probably the worst thing she could have done. She flinched at his touch, instinctively and without thinking about it. He drew back as if stung.

"Look I'm sorry." She let out a breath. "I'm never very good when I've just got back from a trip. It always takes me a few days to adjust again."

"Okay." She didn't flinch at his touch this time, and he brushed her long hair to the side so that he could kiss the nape of her neck. "I love you."

Again – like earlier – she didn't respond; felt acutely uncomfortable in fact.

After a moment she heard him sigh, then felt him move away from her and resume pacing. "You could at least say something."

Suddenly there was a flare of anger. "Like what? You want me to say I love you too?"

"It'd be nice." 

Lara heard an edge of anger in his voice too and span round to face him, eyes blazing. She managed to bite off her initial words, taking deep breaths and trying to calm herself. "Look Dave, I like you. I like you a lot. And I do care about you. I enjoy being with you, and if it means anything I enjoy the sex. But right now I can't honestly say I love you. I'm not sure what I feel." She turned away again, arms folding across her chest.

"Lara . . ." Attempting to sound conciliatory.

She cut him off. "Don't Dave. I told you I wasn't an easy person to get along with. I was serious, but you've chosen not to believe me. I think we need to get a couple of things clear, okay?"

"Lara, I don't want to argue . . ."

"Okay?" She persisted.

He nodded, although she didn't see it. She went on anyway. "First off I have no particular intention of settling down anytime soon. I don't want to get married. I don't want to have kids, and I don't want a life of domestic bliss: cooking, tending the garden, flower arranging and so forth. Second, there are times I need to be alone. I'm going to keep going away on these trips. Irresponsible gallivanting as my father puts it. Sometimes I'm going to be away for months at a time, and for the most part you are not going to be able to come with me. I probably sound like a heartless bitch, but if you can't accept either of those things then you can't accept who I am." Lara came to an abrupt halt, realising that one hand was clenched so tightly that her blunt nails were leaving imprints in her palm. She forced herself to calm down. "Sorry, you probably don't deserve this right now. I'll be okay in a day or so."

After a moment he spoke tentatively. "I understand Lara. I do."

She wondered if he really did, or was simply trying to tell her what she wanted to hear – as men tended to do. Suddenly she wanted some air; some space where she could be alone with her thoughts without feeling stifled. She closed her eyes as she felt his hand touch her shoulder again.

From downstairs there was the sound of breaking glass.

_Relief. _

She knew she should be ashamed of herself, but that was undeniably what she felt. Moving quickly she took her Browning pistol from the bedside table. "I take it that your usual class of visitors know to use the front door?"

"Er . . .What?"

"Nevermind." She headed quickly for the bedroom door, dimly aware of David trailing several metres behind her.

To be honest she'd half been expecting this. Wiegert could hardly let her confrontation with one of his men pass unanswered. And his reputation didn't suggest that his response would be anything particularly subtle.

There was ruddy light coming through the door to the living room, casting flickering patterns of shadow across the walls.

"Fire." David gave voice to her thoughts.

"Stay back." Without waiting for a response from him she stepped forward into the room, gun sweeping quickly to cover all corners. 

There was no one there. The glass of the patio doors had been shattered and one of the curtains and a patch of carpet were ablaze. From the look of it someone had thrown a Molotov cocktail through. 

There was another object resting on the carpet too. Lara stepped past it without taking in what it was, hearing the noise of an engine from outside. Driving away towards the gates was a red Mitsubishi Shogun 4x4. 

As light from the house caught in one of its wing mirrors she got a glimpse of a reflected face; wire framed glasses and a sharply razored goatee. It fit the description of Anton Wiegert himself, and not just one of his assorted bruisers. Lara raised her gun, sighting along it. The 4x4 went down a dip in the ground and the shot was gone. She turned away in disgust.

Despite her admonition, David had entered the room behind her. Ignoring the flames for the moment, he knelt beside the object she'd stepped past. As she watched he rolled it over and picked it up. A moment later he gave a strangled yelp and dropped it, where it bounced on the carpet and rolled to land in front of her feet.

A severed human head. Male from the look of it, with an expression that seemed to be one of mildly embarrassed surprise. Like he'd been caught sitting on the toilet when the decapitation had occurred.

"Someone you know?" She felt slightly sick.

David appeared to be trying hard to restrain himself from throwing up. "Prosser," he managed. "The Private Investigator I told you about."

A fairly clear-cut message all right. As David turned away, leaning against the table and dry gagging, Lara set about the business of dealing with the fire, which was rapidly taking hold.

At that moment Mrs Herschel – Lara would have called her David's Butler, although her actual title had manager somewhere in the name – showed up, apparently having been woken by the noise. A no-nonsense woman in her late fifties with iron-grey hair, she was wearing a dressing gown and lugging a fire extinguisher. Eminently practical, and completely unflappable, she didn't so much as blink at the sight of the severed head.

Without wasting words she set about helping Lara get the flames out.

* * *

"Well, I've got some preliminary results back if you guys are interested."

Lara looked round, setting a Styrofoam cup of brown liquid that was allegedly coffee down on a desk. The only purpose it had been serving was to keep her hand warm. One sip had told her she wasn't going to be drinking it.

The speaker was a friend of David's by the name of Bradley Hughes. A man with the sort of boyish looks that made him look young and inexperienced even though was as old as David and had been at his current job for the past twenty years.

"Anything good yet?" Lara inquired.

"Don't know. I thought you guys would like to be the first to see. Where's David?" Finally looking round and noticing that Lara was alone.

"Stomach problems," she told him succinctly.

They where at a privately owned laboratory in South Oxfordshire, just outside the small town of Wallingford on the bank of the Thames. The view out of the window showed the typical southern English countryside scenery of fields and hedgerows, a small copse of oak trees visible on a slight rise – all very picturesque in the sunlight and slightly incongruous given the unabashed hi-tech of the building they were in.

"Ah?"

"We had to stop four times coming down here."

Bradley seemed more amused than anything. "Something he ate?"

Lara shrugged. "Probably. But you know how he is. You can't persuade him to put something like this on hold simply because he's not feeling very well."

He grunted. "Yeah, I know exactly how he is. Stupid sod." He shook his head and smiled. "So Lara, do you want to start without him, or should we wait?"

"Better wait I suppose. You don't want to do this twice."

He smiled warmly at her. Lara suspected he was trying to flirt – turning on the charm for her benefit. She hadn't really been paying attention though, thoughts drifting back to lasts nights events and the questions of the police that had followed.

"So, David was telling me you were in Greece up until yesterday. What part?"

"Ioannina. The northeast, close to the Albanian border." Lara wondered if he was really interested.

"Ah, not a part I'm overly familiar with I'm afraid. I've always stuck to farther south on my few visits. It's fairly remote up there I believe?"

"Desolate but very beautiful," she agreed.

"So is this were you found the figurine then?"

Before she could respond David returned. He didn't look good, eyes bloodshot and sandy hair disarrayed from where he'd been raking his hands through it.

"Talk of the devil and he doth appear."

David shot his old friend a sour look. "And what have you been saying about me then?"

"Oh don't worry yourself. Nothing flattering."

David managed a chuckle, though it sounded slightly forced. He looked across at Lara. "Didn't I tell you he was full of crap? Don't believe a word of what he says."

"And here I am trying to do an old friend a favour. I take it you don't want to see what I've got for you then?"

Lara tuned out of the obligatory banter, glancing out of the window again. _Anton bloody Wiegert_. It was nagging at her, she had to admit. She'd been expecting some contact by now; a demand of some sort – give us the figurine or else. There'd been nothing though. Making them sweat, she supposed. Either that or cooling it a bit until the police interest started to wane.

" . . . Okay, we've done both EDX and gas-chromatographs on a couple of flakes of surface material . . ."

Lara's attention snapped back to what Bradley was saying. He'd opened the top folder he was carrying and was skimming through the first sheet.

"Sorry," Lara interrupted. "EDX?"

"Energy Dispersal X-Ray. It's a technique we use for identifying elements in trace materials. An alternative method to the gas-chromatograph." He seemed pleased to be explaining to her. Lara nodded for him to go on.

"Anyway, the results. Some surface oxidisation. Only to be expected really. Aside from that . . ." He turned the first sheet over. "Brass." A slight frown. "To be more exact, an alloy of copper and zinc." He looked up. "How old are you figuring this thing to be?"

"What is it Lara? Somewhere over two-thousand years old?"

"Between two-and-a-half and three-thousand," Lara amended.

Bradley's frown deepened. "Interesting. Are you guys certain you haven't been sold the London Bridge here?"

There was a pause.

"You saying it's a fake Brad?" David asked.

"Well . . . not a fake necessarily. But slightly . . . strange. Not quite what I'd expect from something that age anyway." He looked a fraction uncomfortable – perhaps at being the bearer of bad news for his old friend. "You see, when I said brass was an alloy of copper and zinc – well that's technically correct, but the reality is there's always trace impurities. Not in this. I might be able to duplicate it under perfect lab conditions, but . . . Under the surface oxidisation this is completely pure. No other trace elements at all."

"So odd then, is what you're saying?" Was that a hint of excitement in David's voice?

"Certainly."

"It was a virgin site," Lara told him. "I'd be willing to swear on that fact. If someone planted it they went to almost insane lengths to do so." Her thoughts went back to the shrine behind the rock fall, searching for any kind discrepancy. There was nothing that she could see though. Nothing to back up the doubts Bradley was raising.

"Ah, well. These tests are far from 100% conclusive. Just an indication." He smiled. David, Lara noted, had a contemplative look on his face – didn't seem at all perturbed. "Anyway, shall we take a look at the X-Rays and MRI scans we've had done of the thing?"

David indicated for him to go on.

"Hmm, that's not right." Bradley grimaced as he pulled the first of the X-Rays out of a manila envelope. It showed nothing except a large patch of white out in the sheet's centre. The next was exactly the same, and the third, and the fourth. Bradley let a chuckle, although Lara could tell from the way the skin around his eyes wrinkled he wasn't at all amused. "Looks like a bit of a balls up from our lab boys."

Opening the second envelope, his expression froze. "Excuse me a minute please." His smile was distinctly forced and he crossed the room quickly, picking up the phone.

Lara looked at the MRI scan that Bradley had put down on the desk, tilting her head to one side in an effort to view it from the correct angle. She frowned, for the moment unable to take in what it showed – it appeared at first glance like nothing so much as a television picture destroyed by heavy static.

"Sue. Have you taken a look at the scans you sent up?" Bradley's voice as he spoke into the phone. "Well I think you should. They're not quite what I was expecting."

Lara jolted. Then, as she looked at the scan again, shook her head. No, she was seeing something that wasn't there – like looking at a psychologist's inkblot test. She let out a breath. Just a random pattern of interference.

Beside her David suddenly groaned, clutching his stomach and dashing from the room.

* * *

"Hello. I am here to see Mr. Marshall please."

Janet Masters looked up from the Guardian crossword at the voice – rather high pitched, with a distinct lisp on please – and plastered a smile across her red glossed lips. "Certainly sir. And your name is?"

"Aaron Wouters." That lisp again, and also a hint of an accent.

As she looked over the list of the morning's appointments she took the opportunity to surreptitiously size him up. Not far off six-foot tall, he filled out his suit very nicely, she noticed. In his mid thirties would be her guess – the best age for a man in her book – and quite good looking too. Apart from his hair. She suppressed a shudder – short cropped at the back and sides, it was curly on top, with the curls dyed a slightly lighter shade of brown than the rest. Someone _really_ ought to talk him about that. It spoiled the whole effect. The goatee she could just about live with, and the glasses she liked – they lent a touch of gravitas.

A second nature scan of his hands for rings came up blank. Pity really that he was so obviously gay.

Oh, it was no doubt very unpolitically correct and all that, but she had an instinct for _that_. It had never let her down. She'd always been able to spot _them_ straight off – something about their body language towards her.

Ah yes, here was the name. "Good morning Mr. Wouters, Mr. Marshall is expecting you." Although he was, she noted, fifteen minutes early. "I'll let him know that you've arrived."

"Aaron, please." He smiled. Janet started slightly as another man entered the reception area behind him. "And this is Jan Koumas. My accountant. You should have his name down too, yes?"

Janet just nodded, for a moment struck dumb. _Accountant? Bloody hell . . ._ Aaron was hardly a midget but this man topped him by a foot and was nearly twice as broad. His face was a mass of harshly conflicting angles and his scalp was shaved completely smooth. He looked like he'd be more at home crunching bones than numbers. 

He smiled, the effect like tectonic plates shifting beneath his face. It wasn't a pretty sight.

Janet finally remembered that she was supposed to be letting Roger know about their arrival and picked up the phone. "Roger, your three o'clock has arrived. Yes, of course. I'll let them know you'll be down shortly." She hung up, manufacturing another brightly artificial receptionist's smile. "He's on his way. I'll need to ask you to sign in here, if you'd be so good."

"Of course." Aaron Wouters signed his name directly below that of Lara Croft before passing the pen to Jan.

Janet slid a couple of security badges across the to them. "If you could put these on please. There are several areas of the building where anyone not wearing a badge will set off an alarm."

"We certainly, wouldn't want that to happen, would we?" Aaron made a show of pinning the badge carefully to his lapel.

"Thank you gentlemen. The rest rooms are through there on the left if you want to freshen up, and there's coffee available from the vending machines. Otherwise you're welcome to take a seat." As she finished speaking she watched sidelong as Jan folded himself into a chair his huge frame dwarfed, half-afraid it would either break or that he'd get stuck. 

_I wonder if everything else is to scale. . ?_

* * *

"I have to say I was both surprised and pleased when I heard from you yesterday Mr. Wouters."

"Please, please. It's Aaron. If we're going to have a business relationship we shouldn't be standing on ceremony." The man calling himself Aaron smiled.

Roger Marshall nodded, returning the smile. "Quite, quite. I agree entirely."

"I like to think of myself as something of a pioneer Roger. A man able not only to see where the cutting edge of technology is leading, but get there before the crowd. I've been interested in your company for some time now. Some of the work you're doing . . . I find it truly fascinating – visionary even."

Roger preened. "Well, I've arranged a short tour, to show you some of that work first hand. If that sounds to your liking?"

"That sounds wonderful." Aaron raised a hand to scratch the side of his face. "One thing before we start, completely unconnected." A slightly effeminate wave of his hand. "I saw a car outside which I thought I recognised as belonging to an old friend of mine. David Chisholm?"

"Are yes, David. He's helped us considerably in getting where we are today. You know him then?"

"I met him rock climbing in the Sierra Nevada a few years ago now. He helped show me the ropes." A chuckle. "Literally as it happens. I haven't seen him for over six months now."

"Quite the coincidence." Roger smiled. "He's upstairs at the moment with my business partner, Bradley Hughes. In the Noble lab. We could pop up and see them if you liked?"

"No, no." Aaron waved the suggestion away. "Our business is more important. Maybe later if he's still around I could say hello."

Roger nodded. "Whatever you'd prefer."

"Shall we start the tour? I think my friend Jan has a couple of questions he'd like to ask you."

"Of course. Of course," Roger enthused, looking around at the bald-headed giant.

As they stepped through the next door, without any warning or preamble, Jan hit Roger a hammer blow with one enormous fist. Roger collapsed soundlessly, caught before he hit the floor.

"Oh dear Jan, he appears to have found your question too hard."

* * *

Lara was looking out of the window, down at the lab's car park. A feeling of unease played in the back of her mind, though she couldn't pinpoint its source.

"Sorry about that," Bradley was saying. She was scarcely paying attention. "Sue's work is normally absolutely impeccable. I don't know what could have happened . . ."

Lara felt he heart thud. She turned away from the window. "Bradley, do you know anyone here who drives a red Mitsubishi Shogun?" She tried to keep the urgency from her voice.

"No." He sounded nonplussed and faintly put out at being interrupted by something so trivial. "But then, there's nearly two-hundred people working here. I've got no idea what all of them drive." He wandered across, looking over Lara's shoulder at the car she indicated. "Anyway, that's in the visitors parking slots. Hey what's wrong . . ."

As David returned, Lara strode past him the other way, pulling her stainless steel Browning 9mm pistol from her shoulder as she went.

"Lara?"

"What's wrong?" Bradley and David both started talking at once.

"Wiegert." She cut them off as she paused briefly at this door. "Stay where you are and lock the door behind me. Then get the figurine safe and call the police." She caught David's eyes with her own. "Don't whatever you do try to follow me."

Then she was gone, the door swinging shut behind her.

* * *

"Hello Anton. Fancy seeing you here."

At the soft click of the safety catch being taken off, Anton Wiegert raised his hands and turned around to face her slowly. "Lara Croft. How nice."

They were standing about a third of the way down a long, echoing, artificially lit corridor, everything around them sterile and clinical looking. At the moment no one else was in sight.

"Ouch Anton. That's a truly horrible dye-job you've got there. I hope you shot the hairdresser? I wouldn't want to run the risk of running into them in the future."

He smiled thinly. "Most amusing. What can I do for you Lara?"

"Strange question Anton. Considering the circumstances. I was going to ask you pretty much the same thing. You seem to have developed something of an unhealthy obsession as of late."

"Obsession?"

"Following me around. Unhealthy because I'm very tempted to just shoot you to make you stop."

"Whatever happened to asking nicely? Anyway, I don't think I've got much to worry about. We both know you're not the sort of person to shoot a man in cold blood."

"No?" She raised an eyebrow. "Maybe you don't know me as well as you think Anton, dear. Besides, anyone who's had to listen to your voice for more than five seconds wouldn't be acting in cold blood. Believe me."

She looked at him closely. He seemed to be taking all this worryingly calmly, as if it was nothing more than a minor annoyance that he could scarcely be bothered acknowledging. That was worrying. The Anton she remembered was an extremely volatile man prone to psychotic outbursts of temper. Calmness and composure weren't supposed to be his defining characteristics.

"So, are we just going to stand here trading insults Lara?"

"Why not?" She affected a shrug. "Passes the time. Until the police get here."

If that revelation disturbed him it didn't show. "So Lara, how did you know I was here?" Tone conversational.

"Your car. You should have changed it from last night. Makes you a bit of a silly doesn't it?"

He grunted. "I'll remember to be more careful next time."

"So, how's our mutual friend Pierre doing? His recovery going well is it?"

Anton chuckled. "You should be glad it's me here and not him. You managed to seriously annoy him, you know Lara? I've never seen him quite that angry before. 'Spitting bullets' is the expression, I believe. He expressed a desire to rip the heart from your still living body and eat it as you watched."

"Snails. Frogs' legs. The French will eat anything." _Why the hell is he so calm?_ She risked a look around, but the corridor remained empty.

"One thing Lara, if it's not too much of a blow to that ego of yours. I wasn't following you. I was following your 'friend' David. I've been doing it for the past couple of weeks without him noticing."

Lara shrugged. She already figured as much. "Same difference. Now, if the police decide to grant you bail – which I doubt given that you're a foreign national on a murder charge – perhaps you'd like to take a message from me to Avery Rose?"

"Who?" Feigned incomprehension.

Lara let out a sigh. "Lets not even get started on this shall we? The man who's paying your wages. Loud, obnoxious, overweight American with appalling dress sense? No forget that last bit – it hardly narrows it down much, does it? Millionaire arms dealer with delusions of grandeur. Personality of something unpleasant you might tread in on the pavement."

"Ah that Avery Rose." A sour looking smile. "Why didn't you say so? And what message shall I deliver. That you'll agree to blow him if he lets you live?"

"Hardly. I was thinking more along the lines of letting him know that if you or any other of his lackeys come within a mile of David or myself I'll kill them. And then I'll pay him a visit and shove the artefact he's so interested in up his ass sideways. Do you think that's vulgar enough for him to grasp?"

"Yes, yes. I'll let him know you're willing to perform whatever sexual favours he desires if he'll leave you alone. I don't think he'll buy it though. I'm afraid he's got his heart set on whatever piece of junk it was you took from Pierre."

Lara was just framing a response when the door at the end of the corridor opened. "What's going on there?"

Before she could stop herself she looked round. The person who'd walked in on them let out a muffled exclamation at the sight of her gun: "Oh shit . . ." In that brief moment of distraction Anton struck.

She felt the weapon fly from her hand, clattering on the vinyl-tiled floor as it bounced out of reach. A fraction of a second later a blow to the side of the head sent her sprawling backwards, vision blurring. A savage kick to her ribs knocked the breath from her body.

Through the pain she was dimly aware of him pulling his own gun – a Walther P88 pistol – from his shoulder holster, aiming it at her head. In desperation she lashed out as hard as she could with both feet, catching him in the knees just as he pulled the trigger.

The retort of the gunshot was deafening. Lara had done just enough to throw off his aim though, and felt the bullet pass scant millimetres in front of her face before punching into the wall. Before he got the opportunity to fire again she grabbed hold of him tightly, the two of them sprawling in a tangled heap on the floor.

They grappled for several seconds, Lara striving to keep his gun arm occupied. It quickly became apparent that he was considerably stronger than she was, and the gun-barrel began to twist inexorably round towards her.

_Bang!!_

For a moment she was too stunned by the close proximity of the shot to know what had happened. Then she became aware of the fact that Anton was screaming. Hitting him in the face, she yanked free of his grasp and relieved him of the pistol into the bargain.

He appeared to have shot himself in the foot. Blood was leaking out in copious amounts and he was thrashing around like a beached fish.

Lara watched him curiously for a few seconds before she got tired of the spectacle. "For Christ's sake Anton, try to maintain some dignity. It's not that bad you know."

His only response was to bare his teeth at her in a snarl.

"Not turning out to be your day is it?" She bent to retrieve her own pistol, training both weapons on Anton's suppine form.

"Not that you have much to gloat about yourself Lara." The words came out in a hiss.

"No? I seem to be doing alright from where I'm standing."

Almost on cue gunfire rang out from somewhere else in the building. Lara's face went pale.

"You didn't think I'd be stupid enough to come here alone . . . Did you Lara?"

* * *

"You're really her, aren't you? Finally." David's words were breathed out. He'd have been surprised to realise he was talking aloud. His fingertips seemed almost to caress the pitted metal and there was a strange light of avidity in his eyes.

Suddenly his hands spasmed, very nearly dropping the figurine.

David let out a sharp, high-pitched note as pain spiked up both arms and through his shoulders. He blinked rapidly, unsure whether what he thought he'd just seen was real or just his imagination playing tricks. "Now, now. No need for that. All I want is for us to be friends."

No sooner were the words out than he doubled over, more pain spiking savagely through his gut. After a moment he started coughing violently.

"Get a bloody move on! What the hell are you playing at Dave?" Bradley, sounding agitated. He hadn't reacted well to the two gunshots that had sounded several seconds earlier.

"N-Nothing. With you in a minute." Dave wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. Black patches swam across his vision.

"Jesus Christ, are you okay?" David felt Brad's hand on his shoulder, although dimly as if he'd become detached from reality.

"Shit!" Brad stumbled back a couple of paces. "Fuck Dave, you're bleeding."

_Not me, I feel fine_. Hmm, there was blood on his hands. It had spattered across the figurine too. _Now where had that come from?_ Thinking had suddenly become a rather woolly and distant affair, as if he'd imbibed a large quantity of alcohol.

_You want to look out behind you_. David didn't know if he managed to speak out loud or not.

Oops, too late. He giggled as Bradley collapsed in a heap on the floor, not sure why he found it funny. The shadow of the giant loomed over him, blocking out the light and David tried to curl up around the figurine, to shield it with his body.

"Give it to me." The voice sounded like it came from miles away, barely penetrating. 

"No."

As another hand grasped his shoulder David lashed out blindly. A moment later he screamed as the agony in his gut became unbearable. To his befuddled senses it seemed almost as if the figurine was glowing, cold copper eyes glaring at him. His flailing fist caught his assailant a blow to his mouth, more by accident than design.

The assailant swore. David's legs buckled beneath him and he grabbed hold of the nearest thing he could find to steady himself. It turned out to be the barrel of his attacker's submachine-gun.

There was a short burst of gunfire, shockingly loud from its proximity.

* * *

Lara came to an abrupt halt and stared.

The man who'd earlier called himself Jan Koumas knelt over David's body as a lake of blood spread slowly out around it. Sunlight gleamed where it struck his bald scalp and his right hand held a Czech-made Skorpion, its barrel pointed towards the ceiling. Lara could still smell cordite, hanging on the air.

As she watched, the man rolled David over onto his back, easing the metal figurine from his lifeless grasp. He still hadn't noticed her presence.

Numb, feeling nothing she could put a name to, Lara raised her pistol and sighted on the back of his head. She made no sound – uttered no warning – but nevertheless he looked around as she pulled the trigger. She was able to see his eyes start to widen in surprise an instant before a flap of flesh and bone was ripped free from the top of his scalp. The only sound he made as he collapsed face down was a soft, breathy sigh.

Not giving the man so much as a second glance, Lara hastened to David's side, hot metallic-reeking blood soaking rapidly through the front of her jeans as she dropped to her knees. Her hand searched for a pulse she knew she was never going to find at his throat, and her gaze met his vacant, staring eyes. Hastily she looked down at his chest, where seven bullet holes still slowly oozed.

Several seconds later she let out a deep breath and sat back on her haunches. There she remained, waiting to begin to feel something. 

And waiting.

****

Part III-Tisiphone (the Avenging)

Steel eyes, cold and demanding, staring straight at her.

Lara Croft woke with a start. Her heart was racing and her mouth dry. Sweat was drying on her skin, cold despite the sticky heat of the night. A grimace twisted her face. She could hear the soft, rhythmic breathing of the room's other occupant, apparently undisturbed. More distant was the gentle susurration of the nearby sea, mixed in with the occasional sound of a passing car. It was still pitch black. Rolling over she grabbed her watch from the bedside table. 3:27am.

_Oh joy._

She closed her eyes again. And opened them just as quickly. The eyes were still there, angry and accusing now.

"Get out of my head you bitch." Swinging her legs out of the bed Lara pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead. "I don't owe you anything."

Joanna muttered something in her sleep and Lara shot a glare her way before grabbing a robe and stalking out of the bedroom. For some reason being around the American woman left her feeling prickly and uncomfortable.

In fact the whole situation was pretty damned uncomfortable full stop.

"Couldn't sleep either then?" 

The unexpected voice made her start: Emil sitting alone in the dark, wide-awake and fully dressed. 

"No. I always get up this time in the morning." It came out in a snap, and she walked straight past him to the window, looking out at the moonlight reflecting in Thessalonki harbour through a forest of yacht masts.

"Ah."

Silence.

"So, do you want to talk about it?"

"No I bloody well don't."

"Good. Good. Fine."

Lara paused to look around at him. He sounded suddenly almost infinitely weary. She was surprised to see that he was staring down at the backs of his hands – she'd been able to feel eyes on the back of her neck.

Her. Alecto. 

Or her own subconscious. 

_How do you tell if you're going mad?_ _Oh screw it; I was never particularly sane to begin with._

"Dimitriou snore does he?" Dimitriou. Another problem. She seemed to have a list of those as long as her arm. He was somewhere near the bottom, although at the moment figured large by simple virtue of proximity.

Emil chuckled. "As a matter of fact he does."

Although by implication that wasn't the reason he was up. She couldn't be bothered to probe though. She couldn't make herself particularly care.

"You sound pissed off."

"How perceptive." Lara folded her arms across her chest and turned back to staring out of the window. This time it definitely was Emil's eyes she could feel on the back of her neck.

"I don't like it." She finally gave in and said something.

"Care to define _it_?"

"Everything. I'm not one of you. I don't share your goals and priorities. And I'm not going to be ordered around by that supercilious little creep in there."

"Lara, you shouldn't have come. Charron's our responsibility. Not yours."

She grunted. "I don't make messes and leave them lying around for other people to clean up." Besides, Charron had hurt her pride. Charron had made her look like an idiot. It wasn't a good reason she knew. In fact it was a bloody awful reason. But it was a reason nonetheless.

"Well that's your decision I guess."

Lara gritted her teeth against the turmoil inside. She wanted an argument. Something she could lash out at and vent all her current myriad of frustrations upon. It wasn't his fault, she tried to tell herself. He just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"So, have you slept with her yet?"

There was a spluttering sound. "What?!"

"Joanna I mean."

"No!"

"Oh? And why not?" What exactly she was trying to achieve she didn't know, but she kept going. "She's an attractive woman, isn't she? And the two of you have a lot in common. If I was you I'd have slept with her by now."

"You never slept with me."

"No? Well that's because I like you."

"Lucky me."

More silence. Lara tried to find the eyes again, but for the moment they were nowhere to be found. Her relief was muted. They'd be back. Inevitably they came back.

"Christ, Lara, we can't stand each other. I'm surprised I've manage to go this long without resorting to strangling her, and to be honest I'd be astonished if her feelings about me are even that complimentary. Surely that much is obvious?"

"Sexual tension. That's what I see as obvious. A good old-fashioned shag would improve things between the two of you immeasurably."

After a moment of stunned silence Emil started laughing. "You know Lara, you're a nasty, nasty person."

"Only just realised that, have you?" Suddenly the need to get out of here – away from Dimitriou; away from Joanna; even away from Emil – was nearly overwhelming. It was like a form of claustrophobia. She turned back towards the bedroom where her clothes were waiting. "I'm going out for a walk. I may or may not decide to shoot someone."

* * *

Emil stared as the front door shut behind her, then stood up. He ignored the pain that spiked through his body as he did so. Being all but blown to pieces twice in three days was pushing it a bit by anyone's standards. More than the pain though, it was weariness that weighed him down like so many lead weights. Sleep hadn't been easy to come by of late.

The worrying thing about that last comment, he reflected, was that it had sounded almost serious. And she _had_ been carrying a gun. After a moment Emil let out an exasperated sigh and moved to follow her.

He was going to regret this he was sure.

* * *

Mark Xoros stood on the balcony overlooking his vast estate and watched the sunrise.

In his thirties, he was a handsome man, though given a sensually cruel, slightly decadent cast by lips that were too full and too square. A shadow of dark stubble marked his jaw, whilst his eyes were heavy lidded and still – seemingly too slow to blink.

Mark Xoros was not a happy man.

That was an unusual state of affairs. The only son of a billionaire shipping tycoon, he'd inherited all of his father's wealth upon his untimely death eight years ago, and he usually had a good deal to be happy about. Anything he wanted was his, and for him – unlike some – this was a source of gratification rather than disillusionment. He was normally a man who lived life to its fullest extent, taking pleasure from his senses and indulging his desires.

Today though, even the sunrise seemed pale, and he took no joy from its splendour.

A soft sound made him look around – one of the sources of his unhappiness. He forced himself to smile. It was an effort. "Claudia, what a pleasant surprise."

The blonde woman didn't bother responding, simply moving to stand next to him. She didn't so much as glance his way.

Xoros grimaced, although he quickly smoothed his expression over again. Never had he encountered a woman who left him feeling intimidated in quite this way. Not even the fierce old dragon-lady that had been his paternal grandmother. "Is there a problem I can be of service with, my dear lady?"

"No. Everything is adequate." The look in her eyes suggested she did not particularly appreciate being referred to as "my dear lady". He almost smiled. It was the first time he'd been able to discern even a hint of a reaction there.

Almost but not quite.

"Only adequate?" He continued to look at her face. Undeniably she was a striking woman, even given that she stood every inch as tall as he did and didn't look to be of much less in bulk. It was a struggle to find her attractive though, and he had never before struggled to find a beautiful woman attractive.

Attraction, he decided, required that there be a suggestion of humanity. And in her he simply couldn't find it.

"Adequate is all that is required."

"But I seek to be so much more than simply adequate. If there is anything more that I can do . . .?"

"Everything is fine."

Xoros almost chuckled to hear the snap in her voice. But this was a very dangerous animal to be baiting, and the fun to be had minimal in any case. "And what about your esteemed employee? Does he find my provisions adequate too?"

"I am sure he would have informed you if anything was amiss."

"Good, good." He turned away, looking out across the expanse of immaculate lawns – lush and green despite the months of searing Greek summer they had endured. Adorning them were strange, weirdly organic topiary sculptures – though nothing so gauche as topiary animals – which cast deep patterns of shadow in the half-light.

Up until yesterday this had all been a game, he realised. A dark and dangerous game maybe, but a game nevertheless. And a game he had enjoyed playing – a game he had been good at. 

That had all changed with the arrival of the American. Now the game had gotten serious.

He'd heard of the American of course. The Black Magician had a fame – or notoriety – that preceded him. You could not become one of the initiated without hearing some whisper or rumour. But until yesterday Xoros had never thought to come face to face with the man behind the myth.

His face twisted in a grimace. _Why me?_ That must have been the tenth time he'd asked that question, and he was no closer to an answer than when he'd started.

Until now he'd been an insignificant cog, providing finance where it was asked for, but otherwise using his position to indulge his fantasies and desires – his games. In the grander scheme of things he had been unnoticed and inconsequential, allowed to do what he would. And that, to be honest, was how he liked it.

Mark Xoros was not an ambitious man.

But if you make a deal with the devil, you shouldn't be surprised when the devil comes calling to collect his due. That was, in the end, the answer he kept coming round to.

"Do you enjoy watching the sunrise, Claudia?"

The look she gave him suggested that she didn't understand the question.

"I enjoy it. The beauty," he went on regardless. "The sense of a new beginning, opening before you with limitless possibilities. I find it quietly inspiring."

No response. He'd had more informative conversations with some of the statues in his garden. "What do you enjoy then, Claudia? If it is not too impertinent of me to ask."

"Enjoyment is not necessary."

An answer that said so much. He hesitated. "You think not? Then what do you live for, if not to enjoy?"

No response again.

"To serve others perhaps? So that they can enjoy in your stead?" He wasn't sure why he persisted, except that he felt compelled to – to see whether he could find a trace of a human being in there.

"I have my purpose. What more is there?"

_There is everything else_. Xoros bit down on his reply. There had been a finality to Claudia's words that suggested it would be meaningless to press further. He changed the subject: "So, has Mr. Charron decided whether to accept my invitation to conduct tonight's festivities?"

"I'm afraid Luke has many preparations he needs to make, and must regretfully decline."

"A pity." Xoros's thoughts drifted briefly to his third guest. The Asian woman he'd glimpsed only once, from a distance, weighed down with more restraints than any one individual could surely warrant. He suppressed a shudder. It was probably best not to think too hard about it.

"He does however say he would be flattered to be allowed to observe at least some of the ceremony."

"Ah. Good. We will be honoured . . ." Whatever else he might have said was lost amid the harsh crack of a single nearby gunshot.

* * *

Lara's booted foot pressed down so hard upon the man's throat that it left tread-patterns imprinted on his skin. His face turned slowly purple and his mouth worked as if to plead, though the only sound that emerged was a ragged gasping.

Icy cold and detached, her expression was completely blank as she raised her pistol – a .50 calibre Desert Eagle – in both hands and sighted calmly along it.

The man twisted his head to one side, as if that would somehow allow him to escape. Merciless, Lara's finger squoze smoothly down on the trigger.

_Bang!_

As the gun went off something slammed hard into Lara side, knocking her off balance. The bullet went astray, blasting a divot the size of a small plate from the immaculately tended lawn. She quickly regained her balance, dropping into a marksman's crouch and bringing the gun instantaneously to bear on her new attacker.

"Lara, it's me! Emil."

For one eternally long moment he was sure he was going to die. He stared down that imposing triangular barrel with its single implacable black eye. Beyond it Lara's gaze showed not a hint of recognition – hard and ferocious, without a scrap of empathy or compassion.

In a strange way she had never before looked so beautiful to him as she did in that instant. A diamond hard angel of death, the early morning breeze stirring a few stray strands of chestnut brown hair across her face.

One of the tendons in the back of her hand twitched fractionally. The knuckle of her trigger finger turned white.

Then, abruptly, the barrel of the Desert Eagle lifted to point towards the sky. Emil let out a long breath. He could feel his heart pounding.

"Emil?" Lara's expression showed bewilderment. The icy hardness was gone, replaced by a palpable sense of confusion. Her gaze darted around her, as if she was trying to work out where the hell she actually was.

The man whose throat she'd been standing on was trying to take the opportunity to slip away. Emil spotted it and kicked him expertly in the head, just hard enough to slide him over into unconsciousness.

"What the hell is going on?"

"That was going to be my question."

Rapidly approaching footsteps put an end to any immediate discussion. A group of a half-dozen men in suits and shades – an almost universal uniform that said one thing instantly: 'I hurt people for a living' – rounded a corner of the vast white-stuccoed house.

Lara pinged a shot just over their heads, sending them scrambling for cover. Then the two of them were off and running, down an undulating landscaped slope and behind a stand of shrubbery shaped to resemble crashing waves. A hail of bullets chased after them, well wide.

"This Xoros's place?" Lara inquired as they entered a section of gardens that resembled a kind of impromptu maze. 

She squeezed off another shot and a moment later someone cried out. Not hit, but distracted by the noise as he tried to traverse the same slope they'd just come down, the man stumbled and tumbled head over heels, losing his own weapon in the process.

"Yes." _You mean you don't know where you are?_

"Ah, good. That's what I thought." Then they were moving again.

More gunfire rang out, fired blind through the hedges at the sound of their movements. Nothing came close to hitting, although it did add a definite _frissance_ of urgency.

At the centre of the maze there was a marble statue standing over a small burbling fountain. It appeared to be an angel, although a very strange one. It had both breasts and male genitalia, the expression on its androgynously beautiful face somehow lascivious. Neither of them spared the thing a second glance as they ran past it, although Lara did spin round at a glimpse of movement in the corner of her vision, shooting instantly.

The bird exploded in a puff of blood and feathers as the .50 calibre bullet struck it. Its species was impossible to distinguish as what was left of it fell to the floor. 

Someone swore in Greek, and a couple of seconds later a barrage of bullets tore through the spot Lara had fired from. She was long gone by that time.

Emerging from the maze a wrought iron fence blocked the way in front of them. About five minutes earlier Emil had watched Lara effortlessly vault the thing on the way in, and he had not-quite-so-effortlessly scrambled over it after her. Of course no one had been shooting at him then.

Approaching too fast, he misjudged his jump, almost seeming to bounce off it as he fell back into the flowerbeds.

"Stop arsing about," Lara growled. She fired four more bullets back into the maze at the sound of approaching footsteps, then swore as the clip came up empty. By that time Emil had made it over at the second attempt and she quickly moved to follow suit.

A bullet came so close to taking her head off that the wind of its passage lifted up several strands of her hair in its wake. Face pale, she dropped to the ground beside him, and they managed to make clean their getaway.

* * *

Mark Xoros stared at the place the woman had been sitting astride the top of the fence long after she was gone. The image of the way the sunlight had reflected off her hair lingered in his mind's eye, and a smile spread slowly across his lips.

Lara Croft. He'd heard that he could be expecting a visit, although neither of his guests had deigned to mention it.

Now there _was_ a woman. The smile turned into a laugh. There was no one around to hear it though, Claudia having left him the moment the shooting started. All work and no play, etc. etc . . .

Finally he turned away and walked back into the house, although still the image hadn't entirely faded. An idea was forming, and no matter how much he told himself it was insane it wouldn't go away.

Another guest tonight might just add that special spark to the occasion.

* * *

"So, care to tell me what you were doing back there?" Emil waited until they were around half a mile away from the Xoros house before giving voice to the question.

"Going for a walk. Like I said." Lara kept her response carefully neutral.

"Funny. 'Cause to me it looked awfully like you were going to blow a man's head off."

_Ah, sarcasm. That defining trait of twenty-first century Britishness. What joy_. She didn't respond, unable to get straight what had happened in her own head, let alone vocalise it. Fear gnawed at her.

Lara was used to fear. Fear sharpened. Fear gave her the edge she needed to outrun that bloody great boulder, or jump clear of those collapsing floor tiles. In those forms fear was like an old friend, so commonplace that she had almost come to welcome it. It was like riding a wild animal – dangerous to cling on but even more dangerous to let go. A balancing act she was an old hand at. 

This though, was something different. There were no boulders to dodge and no enemies to fight. Just that gnawing fear, which refused to go away.

She couldn't even properly say when it had started. 

When she had arrived here in Thessaloniki was the most obvious answer. That was the first time the voice had made itself known – the first time she'd been sure that there was someone else inside her head. But there were earlier possibilities too. Avery Rose's mansion. A crystal skull. _You owe me_. Or even the compulsion she'd felt when first stealing that cursed figurine from Lomax's grasp.

Since then how much of what she had done had been of her own accord?

There was a fleeting urge to turn the gun around and pull the trigger. Not suicide. Nothing like that. Just the need to shoot that blasted _thing_. To show it who was boss – and that she wasn't to be messed with.

She gritted her teeth. That way lay madness and worse. And besides the gun was empty.

"Blasted thing." Quickly – angrily – she removed the empty clip and slotted a fresh one into place. "Absolutely bloody useless." She didn't know why she'd brought the Eagle instead of her usual Browning HP35 9mms. It was impractical. Not enough ammo and impossible to dual wield unless you had forearms like tree-trunks. Sure it was powerful, but eight bullets against thirty-four wasn't to her way of thinking a good trade. 

Was that _her_ fault too? Swaying her judgement. Distorting it.

"Lara?"

"Just making sure that if I have call to blow anyone else's head off again I'm going to be able to."

Emil grimaced. "What's gotten into you?"

She gave a bitter sounding laugh. "That's the question though, isn't it?" Then she started walking again, forcing him to hurry to keep up.

"Lara, I'm worried about you. This isn't like you." He reached out to touch her shoulder.

At the contact she span on him. He flinched away. "It isn't like me? You don't me." Finally she let out a deep breath and turned away. "Sorry, but some things don't get better through talking about them."

"No? What you were doing up there was endangering the rest of us. This isn't just you anymore."

_Not through my choice_. She kept quiet though; changed the subject. "He's up there you know; Charron I mean."

"What? You saw him?"

She shook her head. No, she hadn't seen him. Nothing as simple as that. "The artefacts he gathered are at least. I assume he wouldn't let them out of his clutches, having gone to all that trouble."

"How can you be sure?" he said finally

"Because I can feel them." _Or she can anyway._ She'd been aware of them as soon as she got within about a mile of Xoros's home. An inescapable presence that was with her still. As she'd gotten nearer, the presence had grown, wiping out everything until Emil had knocked her gun to one side and she'd found herself standing over that man. _Apparently in the middle of murdering him_.

"Feel them?" He sounded confused.

"One of them – Alecto I think, though she doesn't answer to her name – has got a mainline right into my head."

She heard his jaw click shut. He didn't say anything.

"Dimitriou doesn't need to know about it."

There was a pause. Finally Emil nodded. "He won't hear about it from me."

"Thank you."

"Is there . . .?"

"No, there's nothing you can do. Not unless you can get the bitch out of my head." She gave a low chuckle. "Or happen to know a convenient cure for insanity. Believe me, I haven't ruled that one out entirely either."

They continued in silence. As they rounded a corner Lara swore suddenly. Emil was instantly on the alert. "What?"

"Third car along. The silver Opel. Take a look at the driver."

Emil's gaze moved to look at the point Lara was indicating. "That's . . ."

"Lomax." She finished before he had chance to. Her gaze was fixed on the American mercenary's granite hard face. There was no question that he'd seen them too, his gaze locking with Lara's.

"Let's make ourselves scarce."

* * *

"Fuck!"

Lomax aimed a violent kick at a chair set at a streetside café, knocking it over with a clatter. Several breakfast diners looked round in shock before hastily turning away again. A waiter moved to remonstrate with him, but caught the look in Lomax's eyes and apparently thought the better of it.

"Easy." Simon moved alongside him, trying to placate.

"Easy?" Lomax's fists were clenched so hard his knuckles had turned white. "You're telling me to be easy?"

"I think you need to calm down a little, yes."

For a moment it looked like the American was going to punch the shorter but considerably stockier Brit. Instead he contented himself with a snarl, twisting away from Simon's grasp. They continued on down the street, although there was absolutely no trace of either of the individuals they'd been pursuing.

"Don't you think you're . . .?"

"What Simon?" Lomax's voice was soft. Dangerous. "Overreacting a little? Losing it? Is that what you were going to say."

Simon hesitated. "Something like that."

"She killed Travis. She got Langer killed. You expect me to just walk away?"

_What she did old friend, was hurt your pride_. Wisely Simon kept his mouth shut on that though. "You knew Travis better than any of us Scott. You really believe it wasn't just self-defence?"

"He was my cousin. One of us. I saw what happened."

"Yes I know. One for all and all for one, and all that musketeer stuff. Very admirable."

"I know you hated him Simon. Never thought he was good enough to be one of us. Glad he's dead are you?"

Simon looked away. There was no talking to him when he was like this, and he was like this virtually all the time now. _I should just tell him to fuck off. That I want nothing to do with this anymore_. He sighed. But no, he wouldn't do that. "I just think there's more important things to worry about. Like our friend who's slightly challenged in the legs department."

"Don't think I've forgotten him."

"I'm worried that you have Scott. Or at least forgotten what he is and what he's capable of. We should forget about Croft until he's dealt with." _And entirely if I have anything to do with it._ "He's not going to forget that we betrayed him. He's not going to let it pass. Even if it seems like he's got other things on his mind at the moment. 'Vengeance is never too much effort.' Remember him saying that?"

"I know what I'm doing. And I still lead here. You were one of those who elected me if you remember."

"Yeah, I remember."

They continued in uneasy silence. It was getting busy around them now – the onset of morning rush hour – and it very quickly became apparent that it was a hopeless task trying to locate anyone who didn't want to be found. 

Abruptly Lomax simply stopped and turned in the opposite direction. His expression was leaden. Simon experienced a feeling something like relief.

"You shouldn't blame yourself you know."

Lomax favoured Simon with a slow, appraising look. "I don't. I blame her."

"I wasn't taking about Travis or Langer. I meant Angola." And what had happened to Corwin and Hicks.

Lomax turned away again, but not before Simon had seen the flash of rage. 

"Because you do blame yourself, don't you?" He continued regardless. It needed to be said: it had needed saying for months now in fact, but they'd all kept on going, trying to pretend nothing was different.

"Not now." It was a growl.

"Everything you did was correct based on the information we had. Hindsight is a lousy judge." Part of the problem, Simon thought, was that up until Angola everything had been so blindingly successful. Lomax hadn't had to deal with failure. And now that everything he touched was seemingly turning to shit in a reverse King Midas effect, he was slowly cracking up.

"I said not now!" Suddenly Lomax grabbed Simon by the front of his t-shirt and slammed him against a nearby shop front hard enough to make the glass vibrate.

Simon grabbed Lomax's wrists and for a time the two of them stayed locked like that, passers by giving them a wide berth. Finally Lomax pulled away. "The buck stops with the leader. Me. Bottom line."

"Yes. But you don't need to take it so personally. Shit happens to the best of us."

"Just shut up Simon."

Simon did as he was told finally. He had no idea whether anything he'd said had come close to sinking in. It'd become impossible for him to read anything from his old friend except the seething anger that now seemed to occupy his every waking moment.

Then, from across the street, there was an ear-splitting scream.

They both span, Lomax instinctively going for the concealed handgun he was carrying. He managed to stop himself from drawing. The screamer turned out to be an innocuous looking middle-aged woman. 

For a moment Simon thought she was pointing directly at them. Then, with a chill, he realised she was indicating a spot directly above their heads. It felt as if the air had turned to ice, the burgeoning heat of the day drained instantaneously away. As he looked upwards he caught a hint of a reflection in the glass of the shop window. When he tried to look at it directly it had gone, but he could feel himself shaking just at the suggestion of what it might have been. 

There was a sound that hinted at mocking laughter, trailing off into the distance, then the air temperature returned to normal. Across the street several people had gathered, attempting to calm the woman down. Lomax and Simon exchanged a look.

Both of them knew they had just received a message; I'm watching you, it said. And I can deal with you anytime that I see fit.

* * *

The Bloody Tower it had once been known as, although now it was more commonly called the White Tower. Hundreds had been imprisoned and executed within its walls since its construction in the 15th century as part of Thessaloniki's outer ring of defences, and it had more than earned its name. It had even survived the Ottoman Turks more or less intact

Which probably made all these crowds of tourists something of a come down, Lara reflected.

"I'd appreciate it if you inform me before indulging in any more of this morning's . . . antics."

Her expression turned sour and she looked at the speaker. Dimitriou. A small man who, she'd come to the conclusion, made up for in arrogance and obnoxious what he lacked in physical stature. "Pardon? Were you talking to me?"

The set of Dimitriou's jaw became even more jutting and pronounced than normal and a flicker passed across his dark eyes. "This is a not some game for spoilt little rich girls to indulge in. There is more at stake here than you can possibly know."

"I'm curious Dimi. Did you learn English from watching bad 'B' movies?" Emil, she noticed, had edged further away and was looking rather ostentatiously away. Pretending this didn't concern him. The coward.

To her surprise Dimitriou actually laughed. "Plan nine from outer space was a particular favourite. I am sorry to sound melodramatic. But nevertheless . . ."

"At least we know for certain where Charron and the figurines are."

Dimitriou regarded her askance, a hint of disquiet about his expression. "Do we? And how exactly do we know that Lara?"

She clamed up, realising she'd let slip more than she wanted. "Call it woman's intuition," she responded eventually. 

For a time he just regarded her silently. He had beady looking eyes, she thought, like those of a bird. A crow or magpie. Finally he turned away from her. "If only you knew . . ."

"Then tell me." Lara moved to grab Dimitriou's shoulder. He caught her hand in his. Out of the corner of her eye Lara could see Joanna – ostensibly examining an exquisite piece of Byzantine sculpture – tense, ready to spring to Dimitriou's defence.

"You said you had spoken to him personally. That he had confided in you."

_Couldn't the bastard give a straight answer to anything?_ "But that was . . ." She hesitated. The details of that conversion lingered all too clearly. Along with the feelings of embarrassed stupidity. Keep your adversary talking until you've got what you want and can make a clean getaway. The clichéd method by which the Hollywood villain meets his downfall at the hands of the hero. Except by that interpretation she was the one cast as villain. A fleeting grimace turned into a tight smile. " . . . Complete bollocks," she concluded.

They continued glaring at each other. Dimitriou didn't say anything.

"Look, I know I'm not part of your silly little game, and am obviously not to be trusted and all that. But in the circumstances what harm do you think it could possibly do? What more harm?"

"It's not as simple as that." His frustration was palpable.

"I think it is." Lara had to grit her teeth to prevent the building annoyance from spilling over. "Why else are we here?"

They'd come to the White Tower to talk on Dimitriou's insistence. He'd claimed it was one of the few places locally where Charron would be unable to eavesdrop on them – the bloody history seeped into its stones creating a background noise that his magic couldn't penetrate. Lara had wondered why he'd want to bother, but hadn't said anything.

After a couple of more seconds Dimitriou gave a grudging nod. "Emil tells me that you have had . . . previous experience with these people." There was something about the way he said it that clearly suggested disapproval.

Lara gave a brief, impatient nod. "You could say."

"Good. Then I won't have to explain all that."

"No."

"What he wants to do is something he tried once before and failed." He glanced across at Joanna as he said this, for no reason that Lara could discern. 

She still held her poise of carefully studied obliviousness. Odd woman, Lara thought. You could feel the walls she kept tightly raised around herself as an almost palpable presence. 

She had to stifle a sudden urge to laugh. _Rather pot and kettle of me._

"And that is?" She turned attention back to Dimitriou.

"In essence, exactly what you said he told you. He plans to tear down the walls of reality to allow what he thinks of as his goddess to cross over into this world."

"Oh, is that all? That's okay then. I thought for a moment it might be something serious."

Dimitriou appeared to be suffering a sense of humour failure. "I can assure you that nothing you can imagine could possibly be more serious."

"Not even England being 88-6 against the Aussies after following on?" Lara glanced at her watch. "In fact today's play started ten minutes ago, so they've probably lost by now."

Dimitriou spluttered. "Can you take nothing seriously? Is everything a joke to you?"

Lara's gaze turned flinty. "Believe me, I'm taking this perfectly seriously. Now could you stop trying to fob me off with vague and pompous pronunciations of doom and get to the point?"

She saw his hands twitch as if her was stifling the urge to clench them into fists – either that or strangle her.

"What he means is that Charron is going to try to, metaphorically speaking, open Pandora's box using the power he can draw from the blood of the three Erinyes as a key." Joanna had given up any further pretence at art appreciation and moved to join them."

"And unleash all evil into the world . . ." Although, according to the legend that had already happened. _And to be absolutely honest, would anyone even notice?_

"You saw a hint of what would be unleashed at Avery Rose's mansion. And those were just gnats. Less than gnats. Things so small and insignificant that they can be drawn through minute cracks in the background of space-time by someone who knows how. Like Luke Charron . . ."

Lara nodded, glancing quickly across at Emil. She was getting pictures all right. Nasty ones. "A multitude of Adramalechs set loose upon the world. Right?"

He grimaced – didn't say anything

"Adramalech?"

"Never mind." Lara shrugged off the question. "All a bit H.P.Lovecroft don't you think?"

"Lovecroft was a charlatan who stumbled across a bit of dangerous knowledge, and in his ignorance chose to broadcast it to the world." Dimitriou's tone was dismissive.

"I do hope you're joking."

He smiled.

"So that would make this goddess of his you mention what? Shub-Nigguruth, the Goat with a Thousand Young. That's the only female sounding Old One I can remember, although I haven't read any of his turgid bollocks since I was a kid."

"What knowledge he had was hopelessly mangled with delusions and intertwined with creations of his own imaginings."

_Re-emphasise note to self. Irony should not be attempted with either Americans or those who speak English as a second language._ Lara stifled a sigh.

" . . . As someone with knowledge of archaeology you are surely aware of the shared derivations that any number of virgin goddesses from diverse ancient civilisations have. Ishtar, Astarte, Isis, Artemis, Britomaris, Kore. It is even possible to draw a link to Kali from the Hindu religion."

"Not to mention the Virgin Mary," Lara interrupted, sensing a lecture in the offing and hoping to avert it.

"Yes. Indeed." Dimitriou cleared his throat, apparently none too keen on pursuing the implications of that interpretation. "But perhaps what you are not aware of is the darkness of these goddesses if you trace their lineage back far enough. Today our vision has been blurred by the rose tinted spectacles of new-age claptrap, but the reality is that ancient Artemis – as she was initially worshipped – was a truly terrible thing. A mistress of unparalleled harshness and cruelty. The same with all the other names I mentioned"

"Life was a lot harsher back then. It is only natural that your gods would match."

"Perhaps." He waived the comment off with a hint of returning tetchiness. Didn't like his flow being interrupted, obviously. "But the fact remains. When you strip away all the layers of excess meaning that have accrued over the centuries and millennia, what exactly is a virgin-mother anyway? Simply something capable of reproducing asexually, endlessly and without cease. Abomination rather than immaculate conception."

"That's certainly rather a 'male' way of looking at it," Lara responded dryly. "So Charron wants to raise this virgin-mother goddess of his – call her Artemis for now, given our location – and you believe it's a real enough threat that you need to stop him from trying. Does that about summarise? Good."

"This is . . ."

"Serious. No laughing matter. Yes, I think we covered that." A sense of restless impatience filled her. Thrumming urgency. Every nerve ending felt like it was prickling and chaffing. _Me? Or you? _It was impossible to tell though. Blunt fingernails left deep crescents in the palms of hands. "Like I said, the figurines are up at the Xoros place. They haven't been touched yet, for whatever reason. So I suggest we get them back. Quickly. I'm guessing it will require more than knocking on the front door and asking politely. You do have back up you can call on I'm hoping?"

"Yes, yes. Of course." The way he said it was less than convincing.

"You've got a plan Lara?" Emil asked. "We've tried going up against this bastard three times, and the current score is three-nil in his favour. The only thing that surprises me is any of us are still alive."

"I'm working on something," she responded vaguely.

"Can that be taken as a no then?"

Lara managed a hint of a smile. "You've developed such a negative outlook lately Emil. Now have we finished loitering with intent? I think we're starting to put off the tourists. Besides, there are a few things I want to look up on in the library." 

Without waiting for a response she started to stride away. She thought she could hear Dimitriou spluttering indignantly behind her but ignored him. The air around her felt suddenly oppressive; almost claustrophobic. The walls felt like they were closing in, and the bright sunlight seemed like it was being blocked by something, though only from her. Everything else was brilliantly lit.

_Her._

Lara could feel her breath quicken as the sensation of being scrutinised by cold, alien eyes came back stronger than ever. She had to fight down the urge to run. You couldn't escape something inside your own head that way.

_Fucking thing. _

This place might well prevent Charron from eavesdropping, but _she_ was just lapping it up. The stones around her were groaning in anguish. All the blood and pain that had soaked into them down the centuries made them into living things. The damned. Singing to her. _Get out you miserable bitch. Trespassers will be shot. _

Her attention was so distracted that she didn't see the man in front of her until she'd walked smack into him, bouncing off and ending up sprawled on her backside.

"Profuse apologies. Please forgive my clumsiness."

Lara stared up at the hand being proffered to her, clad in a black leather driving-glove. The man behind it was large and dressed in what she took to be a chauffeur's uniform. Ignoring the hand she pulled herself to her feet, dusting herself down, but not taking her eyes off him for a second.

"You are Lara Croft, yes? This indeed a fortunate coincidence." If he was disconcerted by her reaction to him it didn't show.

"Who the hell are you?"

"Nobody important. A delivery boy." He was wearing mirrored sunglasses so she couldn't see his eyes. "These are for you."

Lara found herself holding a bouquet of red roses. In there midst there was an envelope. She held the whole lot gingerly at arms-length, as if it was a canister of nerve gas. "Who are they from?"

"I'm afraid I couldn't say. As I told you, I'm just the delivery boy. Perhaps the envelope . . ."

She peered at it. Gilt edged, and written on the front in an elegant, swooping hand: 'Lara'. There was a strange reluctance to touch it.

"What . . ." But when she looked up the man was gone. She caught a glimpse of his back, rapidly disappearing into the distance. "Wait!"

He either didn't hear, or pretended not to. Then she lost sight of him.

"Lara?" Emil had reached her shoulder. He was staring at the roses.

She let out a long sigh, then dumped them in a nearby bin. "Some weirdo I'd guess. It happens occasionally." After a fractional hesitation she slipped the envelope into a pocket, then wiped her hands on the front of her jeans before starting walking again.

* * *

There was a note with the invitation:

Dear Lara,

I do so hope that you will be able to attend tonight's festivities. I feel that it would be of great benefit to both of us in gaining what we respectively seek. And, of course, your beauty would light up the occasion more brilliantly than a thousand stars.

Yours devotedly,

Mark Xoros

Lara screwed up the note and was about to throw the invitation away too but hesitated. Xoros. Interesting. She'd been expecting that it would be from Charron.

It would be a trap of course. Or perhaps, if she was particularly lucky, merely some kind of sick game. But still, interesting.

* * *

Lara showed the invitation to one of the heavies flanking the gates, who waved her through without comment.

Her face was hidden behind a white domino mask and she was dressed in a simple but elegant black gown. Her outward manner was serenely aloof, although inside her heart was hammering. Not a good idea – sticking your head in the lion's mouth and daring it to bite.

A steady flow of people were making their way up to the house, lit up like a beacon atop its low rise. She'd hoped that she would be one of the last to arrive, when things were already well underway so she could slip in unnoticed and observe. Apparently though, she'd lost touch on quite how late was considered fashionable these days.

Directly in front of her was a couple, the man in immaculate evening dress and a bright green crocodile mask, the woman in red sequins and something ostentatious with peacock feathers. At an estimate she was twenty to thirty years younger than he was and something about the way they were walking and she was giggling suggested they were already both heavily stoned.

_Marvellous. Maybe this will turn out to be an orgy after all._

But no. The heaviness she felt inside suggested tonight wouldn't be anything that simple. The shadow of the Erinyes loomed large and there was a sense of eagerness that definitely wasn't her own, gnawing at the edges of her thoughts.

She quickened her pace, leaving the couple behind her.

The day had been bright and sunny, and oppressively hot. The only thing that remained of that now was the oppressiveness. The clouds had started to gather late afternoon, louring and ominous. It had almost certainly been nothing more than a figment of her imagination, but it seemed to her that the clouds were centring themselves deliberately over the Xoros house.

_Fate. A storm brewing_.

There was a lone man in front of her now, walking with the aid of a cane. 

Lara found herself staring hard, nervousness amplifying a hundredfold into outright fear in one heart-stopping second. But no. That was a real leg. And this guy must have been in his sixties. 

With a shudder she hastened on. _She_ was laughing at her. Behind the mask her lips twisted.

Outside the front of the house a small crowd had gathered – all masked and dressed in evening finery. Lara paused momentarily, to see what the fuss was about.

A midget, tottering on stilts and dressed up like a jester, juggling blazing torches. Beside him a man in a harlequin-patterned unitard, walking around on his hands. The whole set-up felt weirdly medieval and decadent, as if she had somehow stepped into a parallel universe the moment she had passed through the front gates.

_All we need now is Vincent bloody Price_.

Leaving the laughter trailing behind her, she stepped inside. The sense of the medieval deepened. Instead of electric lights there were oil lamps and candles, their flickering illumination casting weird, ever-shifting patterns of shadow and making the gaudy displays of marble statues seem to come alive. Overhead chandeliers glittered softly – strange constellations.

A young woman appeared at her side, proffering a silver tray of glass Champaign flutes. Her attire was eye opening – a gauzy wisp of silvery nothing that concealed not at all. Extraordinarily beautiful, Lara noted accepting one of the glasses, now noticing several more similarly attired servants, men and women both, somehow managing to be discrete as they flitted among the guests. All looked like they'd been recruited from the books of some modelling agency – too gorgeous and ethereal to be true.

And just how were you supposed to drink while wearing a mask? Lara noticed she wasn't alone in this problem, although the majority were wearing masks that left the lower portion of the face uncovered. The ones who had been before and knew what to expect, no doubt. With an inward shrug she moved across the room and feigned interest in the statues.

"Dionysus." The male voice spoke directly into her ear.

"Hmm?" Lara quickly covered up her startlement. Her attention had drifted to the source of heaviness she felt – the oppression. Upstairs somewhere. The figurines were upstairs. She'd been strangling down the urge to immediately charge off looking for them and hadn't noticed his approach.

"The statue. Dionysus. The original god who died for us and was resurrected. Stolen by _them_."

Not Xoros, she decided after a moment. From what she'd heard Xoros was at least ten years younger than this individual, who looked to be in his fifties. He'd gone for the Zorro look with his mask. Zorro with a greying moustache and a gut that even some creative corsetry failed to entirely hide. "By them you mean Christians I take it?"

"Is there any other such group of cultural and spiritual vandals? Thieves the lot of them. Not a single idea that wasn't purloined from others. Even the central tenets of their so-called faith are a sham. And they have the audacity to claim theirs as the single true God. Jack-booted secret police of the spirit."

_Great. Just what I need. Another nut._ His Greek was accented. Hungarian perhaps. Bores could be of any nationality, she'd found. "Interesting word, stolen."

"What other word would you use?"

Lara shrugged, trying to convey that was she humouring him and wasn't really particularly interested. "Well stolen implies some sort of ownership to begin with, don't you think?"

He seemed somewhat flustered by that. "You're not one of them are you?" It sounded accusatory.

"Would I be here tonight if I was?"

"Hmm." Didn't like women who tried to be clever, she thought. Prefers the sort that flutter their eyelashes prettily and show unstinting admiration for the size of his intellect. "This is your first one isn't it?"

"Does it show? Am I wearing my girlishly innocent naivety for all to see?" Inwardly she scolded herself to cut out the sarcasm. It rarely helped.

"I'm sure I would have recognised someone of such great beauty." All charm suddenly. Probably remembered that his goal was to get her knickers down rather than start an argument, she thought dryly. Another of the gorgeous serving girls drifted past in the corner of her eye, giving the lie to his previous statement.

"It is my first time at one of Mark's."

"Ah, so you know our esteemed host personally then?"

"I do beg your pardon. Name dropping is such a ghastly habit don't you think?" The man hadn't volunteered his own name yet, nor enquired after hers. Perhaps it wasn't done at such occasions – secret societies and all that.

He smiled in a vaguely condescending manner. "You're English, are you not? You would know Nigel Bainbridge then I think?"

"Should I? Can't say it rings any bells."

He merely grunted. _Was that some king of test?_ If it was she appeared to have passed – or at least hadn't immediately failed.

"An interesting collection our host has." Lara indicated the statues. "All reproductions of course, but painted in the traditional style. You see that so rarely these days." The image most people had of ancient Greece was white marble pillars and statues in pristine white marble temples. What they forgot was that this was simply down to the fact that over the centuries the paint had worn away. Real ancient Greece was a riot of colour that would probably appear rather gaudy to modern sensibilities.

The man was suddenly beaming. "You are an art lover then?"

_Oh god, hear we go._ "I've been know to dabble occasionally in archaeology." Lara kept the irony carefully out of her voice.

"Excellent, excellent. It's my belief that if you don't understand history you can't possibly hope to understand the modern world around you." He paused, as if consciously reining himself in. Blown a few potential shags in the past by boring them to death, she guessed. "Mr. Xoros does indeed have a fascinating collection, although a lot of people do find them rather vulgar."

The statues were painted in warm and realistic flesh tones. The effect was a complete transformation from the sort of thing you would find in a museum. It managed to almost verge upon the pornographic. Especially the one of Leda and the swan.

"I don't see why. Only like this are you seeing them as they were initially intended." Her mind turned to how to dump him without causing undue offence – or at least drawing undue attention.

Circumstance stepped in and saved her the bother.

"Lara, you made it. I was beginning to wonder." Lara had never heard that voice before, but the reaction from her would be companion told her immediately who it was. His eyes sort of glazed over and he almost tripped over himself trying to fade into the background.

"Mr. Xoros, I presume." She turned around.

He was wearing a mask that was probably supposed to be a satyr but instead came across as something demonic. His too-full lips almost seemed part of the mask – louche and decadent; perhaps a little cruel; very sexual. "Indeed. Indeed."

Lara foisted her untouched champagne glass off on the Hungarian man before he could fully retreat, then allowed herself be steered away. "I have to confess I'm wondering what I've done to deserve this invitation to tonight's . . . events?"

He laughed lightly. Lara noticed a haughtily attractive blonde woman staring at the two of them. Her eyes held jealous contempt. "I saw you this morning, and I have to confess I was bewitched."

"Really. That's nice." As they walked Lara scanned the people they passed, searching out a particular presence. He wasn't there, but that simply increased the sense of anxiety. Inside her head her uninvited guest was starting to make noises, gibbering insistently. Combined with the weird lighting it was hard to escape the impression that she'd become stuck in some kind of bizarre nightmare reality. One where the monster was lurking just beneath the surface, waiting to devour. "I feel I must apologise. I was under the mistaken impression that your wonderful gardens were open to the public."

Another laugh. "No need. No need." As if this morning's gunplay wasn't even worth mentioning.

They passed an open door. Through it Lara glimpsed a grand piano. No one was writhing naked on top of it. Maybe things picked up as the evening went on. "The note with your invitation suggested that we might find some kind of mutual benefit from this evening. I hope that wasn't just some oblique attempt to get me into bed?"

"So direct."

"If you're going to say you like that in a woman it'll be a mistake. As well as simply being horribly clichéd."

He laughed again. "But I do like you Lara, you know that?"

She shrugged. "Which, to be honest, is neither here nor there." There was a staircase to her right. The figurines were somewhere up there. They blazed for her – cold beacons. The effort to stop herself simply charging headlong in that direction was immense. Maintaining control over her own body became her sole focus.

"Lara? Is something the matter?"

She realised she was shaking; could feel herself sweating – icy on her skin. She forced herself to take a deep controlling breath. "I'm fine Mr. Xoros. Perhaps you could attempt to locate the point."

"Mark, please." His smile faded as he saw her eyes behind the mask. "And yes, as you say I shall cut the . . . Now what is the word . . .? Ah yes. Bull shit." Those sensual lips compressed, lines forming around them. "The reason I invited you tonight Lara, was that I thought we could help each other with a mutual problem. A one-legged problem."

* * *

Emil adjusted the bow tie around his neck. Beside him Joanna smoothed down her dress.

The thick bushes next to them rustled, and an indistinct sound emanated from within. He fought down a twinge of guilt. They were hardly going to die of hypothermia he reminded himself, and were likely going to be found soon enough. And just maybe this would teach the idiots a lesson about getting mixed up this kind of thing. _Yeah. Right._ He stifled a sigh. _My boy scout deed of the day_.

Emil extended an arm to Joanna. "Ready dear?"

He pretended not to have noticed the look directed his way as she accepted dubiously. Inside the glimpses of her that he'd caught as they were hurriedly changing were playing over and over. _Lara, you bitch. Why on earth did you have to put such thoughts in my head?_

"You know, I can't say I really liked her, but I never thought she would betray us like this."

Emil stopped abruptly. "That's what you think, is it?" His voice was tight.

She just looked at him, eyes pitying behind the cat mask she wore.

"Lara has a habit of taking of taking things into her own hands. If you want a job done properly then do it yourself. That sort of thing. A lot like you really." He remembered Lara's words from earlier though: _One of them – Alecto I think, though she doesn't answer to her name – has got a mainline right into my head._ His free hand clenched into a fist. _Fuck, fuck fuckity-fuck. Fuck._

They walked up the front gates of the Xoros house in silence. Emil attempted to look relaxed – something like a man with an attractive woman who he was delighted to be spending time with on his arm. He wasn't sure how much good it did. He felt more like he was being forced to stick said arm down the throat of a Siberian Tiger that hadn't been fed for two days.

The stream of people making their way up to the house had thinned down to nothing now and Emil could feel the eyes of the two gate attendants on them. They were late beyond the dictates of fashion. He forced a smile as he extended the stolen invitation to one of them – tried to make his body language say: "every right to be here; nothing at all suspicious". 

Then he caught a glimpse of the name on the invitation he was holding, and his smile froze.

Stanislav Vorokovsky.

_Shit. _His thoughts raced, searching for some kind of convincing explanation. _That'll be the well-known Afro-Russian ethnic minority then._

There was a thud that made Emil jump. In front of him the attendant toppled slowly face-forward onto the path. A moment later there was a second thud, and his companion followed suit. Joanna attempted to struggle, but was overpowered quickly and efficiently by a stockily built figure who had materialised seemingly from nowhere.

Emil simply raised his hands as the gun was thrust in his face and said wearily: "Hello Lomax. Does this mean that you didn't get an invite either?"

* * *

"Forgive me, but I was under the impression the two of you were meant to be on the same side. More or less." Lara eyed Xoros curiously.

Xoros gave a forced chuckle. "With friends like these . . ."

"Who needs enemies. I'd like to say I sympathise . . ." She scanned the crowds for what must have been the tenth time, paranoidly seeking.

"But we are all foolish, evil people and have brought it on ourselves. That is an accurate reflection of your views, isn't it?"

"I think I'm a fairly open-minded . . ."

"It's funny isn't it, but everyone I've heard say that without fail really means exactly the opposite."

Again the scan brought no sign of Charron. But he was there. He was close. Lara looked back at Xoros. Her gaze turned hard. "Forgive me, but my experience of you lot in the past has somewhat tainted my views. And lets be honest, what you're proposing, I'm guessing, is to use me to get rid of Charron before he decides that you're expendable. You probably don't even expect me to succeed, and when I fail you'll simply claim you played a part in it . . . So raising your stock with your fellows and making yourself less expendable."

Xoros appeared absolutely furious. "If you had any idea of the risk I was taking even talking to you . . ." 

Lara saw his hands twitch, as if he wanted to grab hold of her and shake her. She let out a breath. "Yes. You are taking a risk, aren't you? Why? If you know the same things I do, then you know just what an absolutely enormous risk it really is. Perhaps he told you to do this. Perhaps this is all a set-up. A trap."

For a time they said nothing – simply stared at one another. 

Then Xoros started fumbling with a slender silver chain around his neck. "I'm told this will offer me some protection from him – stop him spying on me from afar. I don't know if that's right. I don't know anything when it comes to _that_. But you have to believe that this is not a set up." There was fear in eyes. Intense fear. To Lara it looked absolutely genuine. He turned away from her quickly.

"So," Lara said finally. "This evening. What is it supposed to be? What's supposed to happen?"

The fear was gone when Xoros looked back, replaced by that slightly dangerous charm he had – that subtle air of sexual predation. Once it might have held some appeal to her. "A celebration of the summer solstice. It is a religious occasion for some of us, although we're not pedantic about it. As much as anything else it's a celebration of life, and anyone is welcome to join in."

_Oh yes_. Definitely sounded like an excuse for an orgy. "I'm afraid I'm not much for religion. Badly lapsed Church of England. Agnostic is probably the correct word, if I'm honest."

"Each to there own. We don't proselytise. As I said, it's more a celebration."

"I'd heard something along the lines of Goddess worship."

That slight tightening of the lips again. "A growing faith. There are goddess worshipers all across the world now. Wicca; paganism. All follow at root, the same basic creed. As Christianity dwindles across Europe it's going to become more and more important. It may even become the pre-eminent religion in Europe within the next century."

Lara shrugged non-commitally. "You don't strike me as the sort you'd find dancing naked around Stonehenge. Or, for that matter, like you organise your life by the whims of your feng shui consultant. What I'd heard suggested something rather . . . darker."

"Tabloid stereotyping. It pains me to hear you repeating such rubbish. It may be that we offer a more . . . potent form of expression. But nothing in essence that is too far removed. Nothing sinister."

"And Charron?"

She saw in Xoros's expression that this was a man who was slowly waking up to the fact that he was way out of his depth, involved in something much more serious than he had ever imagined.

"Every religion has its fanatics and its fundamentalists."

"Where is he now? Will he be joining in the celebrations?"

"The bastard is around." Xoros made a short, stabbing wave. He was clearly angry. "He's taken oven my house. Tell's me nothing in a hundred pretty words, smiling all the time. I invited him this evening, but his . . . his assistant claims he is too busy, although he may drop in to observe. I feel like I've been invaded. He's even got his own prisoner, which I'm not supposed to know about." Xoros clamed up quickly.

"Prisoner?" _Said too much, or wants me to think he's said too much?_ Lara studied him carefully.

He hesitated. "An Asian women. I've only seen her once, from a distance. But I know which room she's in. Charron's men keep everyone at a distance, and are none too polite about it."

Across the room a man hailed Xoros and started to cross towards them. A single look had him stopping in his tracks and pretending he'd just thought of something more urgent that he needed to do. For all his 'I'm just a benign billionaire with a couple of religious eccentricities' act Mark Xoros seemed to have a very well developed knack of scaring the shit out of people.

"So, bottom line Mr. Xoros. You want rid of Charron because he's cramping your style, and when you saw me this morning you hit upon the idea that you could use me to accomplish this end with minimal risk of getting your own fingers burnt. Have I missed anything?"

"I heard he stole something from you Lara. I heard you wanted it back. Needed it back, in fact. You want me to say I'm using you? Well I admit it. I am using you. But I'm also giving you exactly what you want, no charge, no questions asked. So in the end, does it really matter?"

Lara looked around again, at the gathering of masked guests clad in their evening finery. One thing was certain: it certainly didn't matter a damn to the thing that had taken up occupancy somewhere in her head.

"And I meant it earlier, when I said you had me bewitched."

* * *

"You." Lomax grabbed Emil by the collar, forcing him back against one of the gateposts. "Wouldn't you just know it."

Emil tried to draw in a breath through his constricted windpipe. "Last time we met I thought we were on the same side."

"Circumstances change." Lomax's face showed about as much expression as a granite slab. Emil's gaze fixated on the gun barrel still held inches from his face. It was worryingly steady. "Getting betrayed by your client, for instance."

"Well, nice seeing you again. I can see that you're too busy to want to stop and chat."

"Where is she?" Flat and cold.

"She?" Emil pretended bafflement, trying to buy some time.

"He means Lara," Joanna interjected heavily.

"Joanna, isn't it?" Lomax's gaze flicked momentarily towards her. The stocky figure – Simon – had released his grip on her.

"That's right."

"So Joanna, care to answer the question?" Emil could tell that enough of Lomax's attention was still fixed on him to earn him a bullet if he made any kind of move.

"Up there, in the house. But you already know that."

Lomax grunted, neither confirming nor denying.

"Charron's up there too."

There was a flash of anger at Emil's words. It was hard to see where it was directed. "We know that."

"Well I hope you've come up with some brilliant new tactical solution then." Emil felt a bead of sweat run down the side of his face.

"I'm sure he'll die just like anybody else. When I shoot him in the head." Lomax's knuckle whitened on the pistol's trigger.

_Oh yes, I recognise a hint when I see it_. Emil swallowed hard and shut up.

"Jesus Christ." Joanna sounded suddenly furious. "Are you two just going to stand around waving your dicks at each other until the world starts to come crashing down around your ears."

"I take it you have some kind of proposition, Joanna." Lomax relaxed his grip on the trigger ever so slightly. His words dripped with cynicism.

"You want Charron, right? We want Charron. You want _her_. We want her too." 

_What the hell was she doing?_

Lomax's smile had a bitter twist to it. "Sorry Joanna. I've developed this major trust deficit of late. It's nothing personal."

"We never betrayed you. You never betrayed us." She stepped in front of Lomax, between him and Emil, matching him every inch of the way for hard and stony. "You want to shoot us? Well hurry up and get on with it then. Then go and stop Charron before it's too late."

Several seconds passed. Neither of them budged an inch. Finally Simon cleared his throat. "Lomax."

"What?"

The Englishman nodded to indicate a couple of other late arrivals, who had just come up to the gates. They had stopped dead in their tracks and were staring at the scene in front of them, wide-eyed.

"Deal with it Simon."

Simon forced a smile that managed somehow to be friendly and welcoming. "Good evening Sir. Ma'am. Please forgive us for the disruption. A small problem with would be gatecrashers. I hope you understand." The couple were looking at Hicks, who was just finishing dragging the second unconscious gate attendant into the concealment of a stand of bushes. "Now. Your invitations please?"

* * *

The night's celebrations would begin with an offering to Artemis. That's what Xoros had told her. From the look of things the form the offering was going to take owed rather more to Aleister Crowley or Charles La Vey than it did to any kind of historical precedent.

At exactly 23:00 a gong had been rung and they'd all filed through into what Lara took to be the house's main hall, hooded cloaks being passed out to the guests by Xoros's small army of attendants. Got to look the part, she reflected as she donned hers. Even if in this case the part appeared to be sad middle-aged Satanist.

Because she was Xoros's personal guest she got to have the best view of the proceedings in the house – in this case standing in the centre of the upstairs balcony overlooking the hall. Not exactly inconspicuous, but it allowed her the opportunity to scrutinise each of Xoros's three hundred odd guests.

There was still no sign whatsoever of Luke Charron.

Pale traces of light filtered through the ornate skylights and torches flickered erratically in their wall brackets, peculiarly scented smoke giving the air a strangely unreal haze. There was a sense of expectancy – a hundred whispered conversations creating a rising buzz not unlike incessantly beating hummingbird wings.

Lara found herself gripping onto the balcony railing, her centre of balance shifting weirdly. She could hear laughter. It wasn't from any external source. Gritting her teeth hard, her gaze travelled to the statue that dominated one end of the hall.

Unlike the others in Xoros's collection, this one appeared to be genuine. Artemis. _Who else?_

She appeared crude and malformed – a million miles from classical Greek elegance. A pillar that had been melted under some kind of immense heat and run by chance into its current form. Yes, Lara thought, that was what she looked like. Blank eyes glared down from a lumpen mess of a face. Malevolent. Mocking. Her twenty or thirty breasts made her torso look deformed.

Artemis. The Maid of the Silver Bow. Twin to Apollo. _I shall always be a virgin And live on summits of the great Sierras, Hunting in the forests: O grant me this!_ The oath she was reputed to have had sworn before Zeus, her father. 

This monstrosity. Lara felt laughter rise into her throat like vomit and struggled to choke it back. Actaeon had probably welcomed being torn apart by his own hounds if this is what he'd spied, bathing in a stream.

The old darker source that Dimitriou had mentioned, before it had evolved the more civilised gloss of the classical period. Or to put it another way, the Ann Widdecombe of Artemis's.

Lara suppressed a shudder. A statue. Stone. Nothing more. Nothing, certainly, to provoke such an irrational reaction. Indeed, viewed from an archaeological standpoint it was rather splendid.

_Yes . . . Rather splendid_.

At the statue's feet was some kind of altar. Lara didn't spare it more than a quick glance. Despite her rationalisations she found she didn't want to look at the statue any longer than she had too.

"Attractive old dear isn't she?" She murmured to Xoros, seeing him frown out of the corner of her eye in response. He didn't say anything though.

Instead he stepped forward to the edge of the balcony, spreading his arms wide. "Ladies. Gentlemen." The frown was gone, replaced by the expression of a beneficent god.

The buzz of conversation died slowly until Lara was able to hear the soft crackling of the torch flames. 

"As you know tonight marks the start of a very special time for all of us . . ." Xoros had an orator's voice, rich and deep and compelling. It managed to fill the hall easily without him seeming to need to raise it beyond its normal range, and it commanded the attention on an almost visceral level. 

A pity that he was using it to spout such utter drivel, Lara thought as she blocked the sermon out and went back to scanning the lines of masked faces, blank and eerie with their hidden eyes. Shop-window dummies or Stepford wives.

It was only when the music started that she realised he'd finished speaking. It was organ music, deep and sonorous, piped in through discreetly positioned speakers. A nod towards the familiarity of a church service. To Lara's ears there was just enough of the Hammer Horrors for it be quaintly cheesy rather than the mysterious and slightly sinister that it was obviously aiming for.

She heard the doors directly beneath the balcony being thrown open, and felt the ripple of expectancy pass through the crowd of onlookers before she saw the procession. Then the first of them came into view.

Lara couldn't see much from the back. He – or possibly she – was wearing a hooded robe of black silk that covered up any other details, swinging a thurible metronomically as he walked along at shuffling pace, dispensing clouds of incense.

Directly behind this person came three others, also wearing similar hooded robes, though different colours this time. The one in the centre was clothed in white and appeared to have some trouble walking, swaying from side to side as he went. He was wrapped around with blood red ribbons, the ends held by the two individuals flanking him. They themselves were dressed in robes of vivid red, guiding the one in white gently forward.

Bringing up the rear was a second individual dressed in black. Like the first, this one was also swinging a thurible, muttering some kind of cadence that was barely audible over the organ music.

Lara flicked a sideways glance at Xoros. He appeared to be enraptured by the scene he was lording it over, and her lips twisted in a grimace. She'd been right first off – a Crowley wannabe. 

And somewhere close, the real thing. What did _he_ think of all this? Contempt, like her in all probability.

The procession reached the foot of the altar.

The two dressed in black continued onwards, shuffling slowly round the altar, murmuring blessings – or whatever. The others stopped. For a moment it looked like the one in white would collapse, face first.

When the ones in black had completed a full circuit they moved to stand flanking the statue of Artemis, motionless except for the slight continued sway of their thuribles.

Then the two in red began to circle the figure in white, anti-clockwise, holding their respective ribbons at arms-length as they unwrapped him. The ribbons fluttered to the floor and the figure in white was left momentarily unsupported, a lily drifting in the breeze. Quickly his two guides closed, throwing back his hood and pulling the robe from his shoulders.

A muted gasp travelled around the audience. 

Beneath the white robe the man was naked. He was young Lara saw, probably still in his late teens – more of a boy really. And almost extraordinarily pretty. Gleaming blue-black curls fell to his shoulders, his slim, lithe body tanned and gleaming as if it had been annointed with some kind of oil. Patterns had been drawn on his skin in red-brown paint, marking out the energy lines and major chakra centres of his body. 

The red-robed figures turned him slowly through 360 degrees, ritually displaying him to the audience. His penis, Lara saw, was massively erect, his lips rouged and parted, resembling those of an attractive girl beneath the gold half-mask that hid the upper portion of his face. He was quite obviously stoned.

Then they eased him gently back, onto the altar until he was lying prone, his head at Artemis's crude stone feet.

Lara's grip tightened again on the railing. This whole thing should have been laughable – akin to the initiation rituals of public schoolboys. But she wasn't laughing. Instead she was suddenly desperately afraid.

Together the figures in red performed a deep salaam to the statue, kissing the tiled floor. As they rose as one they threw off their own robes.

For the first time Lara realised that they were both women.

They were cut from the same mould as the servant's she'd seen earlier: almost too perfect willowy Amazonian figures who looked like they'd be more at home on a photoshoot somewhere. Unlike their friend on the altar these two were not _quite_ naked, though the white cloth draped around their hips didn't leave a whole lot more to the imagination. Silver amulets in the shape of crescent moons reflected the torchlight above bared breasts. Each held a type of long, wavy bladed dagger –sometimes known as a kris.

Xoros must have noticed Lara tense. "They are just for show," he murmured. "Do you think I could allow a murder to take place before several hundred witnesses?" He smiled. "I myself have been in the same position as young Panos down there, and can assure you it is actually most . . . enjoyable."

"Right." The sickness in the pit of Lara's stomach didn't fade as she watched the two women walking round the young man, tracing the patterns drawn on his skin with the flats of their dagger blades. She could see him quivering.

One of the women grabbed hold of his erect penis, stroking up and down, bringing her dagger to touch it's tip. The other touched her dagger to his slack lips. Lara started, feeling a frissance of energy. The lurking presence connecting into her thoughts coiled in on itself like an angry snake.

"So what is it then? You 'sacrifice' his virginity on the altar of Artemis?"

Xoros shrugged. "To be honest I doubt he's a virgin in anything more than a symbolic sense."

"Worshipping a goddess of chastity by fucking on her altar. Well I have to admit that it's a new one to me." As she spoke Lara saw one of the women mount the altar, kneeling astride the man's hips. The strip of cloth around her hips slid away. _About on a par with a trendy vicar trying to spice up the Eucharist a bit by introducing a recital of the Lords Prayer backwards beneath the sign of the Goat of Mendes. _

Satanism-lite. Idiotic role-play. 

_Then why does it scare me?_ Irrationally it seemed to her that the statue's eyes had come alive, glaring down at the sacrilege being committed at her feet.

"We don't like to bind things too tightly in pedantic stricture."

In different circumstances she might have laughed at that.

The second woman had shed her own sole remaining garment and joined the other two on the altar, kneeling above Panos's head and swaying rhythmically back and forth. 

Lara looked away. Apart from her the entire audience appeared spellbound: hypnotised. The air she was breathing was thickening to treacle and suddenly she found herself shivering violently – icy cold.

It was a sensation she had felt before.

"Lara?" She ignored Xoros's perplexed query, spinning away from the balcony railing and half-running down the line of spectators, letting the feeling guide her rather than her eyes. She wasn't aware of her own breath coming in torn gasps, or even the frantic pounding of her heart – just the certainty that something awful was going to happen if she couldn't stop it in time . . .

There was an ear-splitting shriek.

"Oh god! Oh god!" Someone sobbing.

Time crystallised. Lara stopped and stared, feeling her gorge rise.

One of the women on top of Panos was holding an object it was difficult to make out, staring at it in apparent confusion. Garishly bright red liquid was spurting across her breasts and stomach while her dagger dangled limply from her other hand, its blade gleaming wetly.

Finally the situation penetrated.

She threw the object violently away from her, staggering to her feet and stumbling away, spewing vomit. The other woman was already curled up in a ball at Artemis's feet, her face buried in her hands and her shoulders shaking.

Panos let out a pitiful mewling sound, his body convulsing. Blood continued to pump thickly from the ragged, gaping hole that was all that was left of his groin.

As several other people started screaming Lara finally managed to tear her gaze away. And finally saw _him_.

He was standing directly opposite her, an island of calm amid the chaos unravelling around him. Their gazes locked, and there was no question that he saw her too.

Luke Charron, of course, was smiling.

Outside there was a deafening crack of thunder and overhead the skylights shattered into a million razor shards.

* * *

Emil dove for cover behind a stone bench. A fraction of a second later the burst of bullets hit, filling the air with stone splinters. Cursing beneath his breath he returned fire with his pistol, between the legs of that weird statue of the hermaphrodite angel.

The whole world seemed to be running in ever decreasing circles, _déjà vu_ gone mad. It was only this morning that he'd found himself in exactly the same position, fleeing from Xoros's men.

He almost felt like laughing.

They'd been ambushed about half way up to the house by about eight of them. Obviously Lomax's performance at the gate had not gone unnoticed. Only the fact that one of the ambushers had been a little over eager and started shooting before his comrades were in position had saved them.

As it was Hicks had still taken a bullet. Another one. If this was par for the course with him there was no wonder he was in such a state. As before though – a couple of nights ago on the bank of the Thames – it didn't appear to be impairing him overly. Yet.

As much by luck as anything else they'd managed to retreat as far as the maze without getting gunned down. Now things had deteriorated into a brutal game of cat and mouse between the aisles of neatly trimmed hedges.

Emil caught a glimpse of movement to his left, quickly determined that the others were all accounted for, and shot it. There was a yelp, and the figure fell over backwards, crashing through vegetation.

Probably not dead though. Their attackers were wearing body armour. Even so a .45 calibre bullet – as Emil knew from bitter experience – would still be extremely unpleasant to be on the receiving end of.

Another movement, this time right beside him. Joanna, slithering across the grass on her belly to join his position. They both shot the next assailant to try his luck simultaneously.

"Don't say I don't take you to all the fun and exciting places," Emil said wearily.

Joanna just grunted by way of reply.

A momentary hush fell over proceedings, everything going still as both sides weighed up their next move. The clouds overhead were now so low they seemed almost to be reaching down to sweep the Xoros house and everyone in it off the face of the earth. 

Off to the right Lomax darted forward . . . 

Emil's vision whited out. All the breath was blasted instantly from his body and he felt the ground vanish from beneath him. _What the . . .?_

When consciousness returned he found himself sprawled flat on his back. There was a constant dull roaring sound in his ears, and the air around him was filled with the stench of fried ozone. He blinked several times and gradually vision began to reassert itself through the neon patterns that had been burnt onto the back of his retinas. His skin danced with static.

An attempt to move proved unwise, although he was unable to hear what he thought must have been a bellow of pain through the roaring. Several seconds later, and with a second pained attempt, he managed to lever himself up into a sitting position. Every single inch had acquired its own hurt, all calling out at once for attention.

His gaze finally settled on the statue standing at the maze's centre, where the lightning bolt had struck. It was several seconds before he managed to fully take it in.

There was a split running down the middle of the angel's androgynously beautiful face, and behind it there was . . . blackness. Absolute blackness. As he watched, the split grew, travelling slowly but inexorably down the centre of the thing's torso. When it reached the statue's groin the entire thing shattered.

Emil scarcely even noticed the start of the deluge, his eyes fixed on the thing that now stood where the statue had, flexing its wings before hopping down from its pedestal.

* * *

"Lara?"

She twisted furiously away from the hand that touched her shoulder, yanking her gaze away from the altar and rounding on Xoros. The image of the 'sacrifice' giving one final spasmodic twitch, his chest pierced by a two-foot long shard of glass, lingered horribly in her head.

"Happy are you?"

Xoros's mouth worked without any sound coming out. What was visible of his face looked ashen. Around them, most of the audience had already fled. Only the stragglers and those who'd been injured by the storm of fallen glass remained. Rain was lashing through the shattered skylights with a violence that was difficult to comprehend – almost a wall of falling water.

Lara turned away from him again, trying to locate Charron. She'd lost him as the glass had started to fall. There was an urgent clamouring inside her head – a sense that something truly frightful had been roused from its slumber, its attention fixed upon this place: watching; waiting.

She had to find him. Stop him. Kill him. Spill his guts . . . Bathe in his blood . . . A strangled cry escaped her throat as she tried to rein in the urges and images that flooded through her. They wouldn't go away though.

"Where is he?" It was a growl. She didn't recognise it as her own voice. "Where . . . are his rooms? This Asian woman . . ." 

Those last words were hers, weren't they? She realised she'd grabbed hold of the front of Xoros's shirt and pushed him back against the railings. As she paused in momentary confusion, he took hold of her wrists and eased her away from him.

"I can't . . ." He started. Then suddenly. "Fuck it. Fuck that bastard." She saw that he was trembling, part fury and part shock. "Okay." He made his decision. "Follow me."

Lara had to scurry to keep up with his rapid stride, not really taking in the direction they were going as she wrestled with the demons in her head. Someone called out to Xoros as the passed, sounding scared. He didn't pause, or respond. Didn't even appear to hear, afraid perhaps that his resolve would snap if he stopped to let himself think.

They rounded a corner. Two heavies in suits moved to bar their way. "This part of the house is private. I'm afraid no one is allowed beyond this point." Unfriendly politeness conveyed with a slight American accent. The speaker's hand hovered near a noticeable bulge in the side of his jacket – a less than subtle hint.

There were several seconds of silence. The man made no move to back down. 

Breathing heavily, Xoros reached up and ripped his mask off. Lara could see the colour rising in his cheeks – the barely contained fury. "Friend, I own this house. Now get out off my fucking way!"

"Mr Xoros." The blandly impassive expression didn't waver, giving the impression that he had recognised who he was speaking to all along. "My orders come from a higher authority than yours. So if you'd care to step away . . . As I said, no one is allowed beyond this point." Then he placed a hand on Xoros's shoulder, as if to guide him away.

Xoros backhanded the man across the face, sending him staggering. The signet ring he wore left a bloody gash across his cheek. 

The second heavy went for his gun. 

Lara grabbed his arm, snapping it down across the back of her knee. The gun fell, bouncing on the carpeted floor. A flat-handed blow to the throat sent him reeling, though he didn't fall. A nose-crunching headbutt accompanied by several violently applied knees to the midsection, followed by a twist over her hip set that to rights. A couple of well-chosen kicks made sure he stayed there.

She narrowly managed to stop herself from stamping down on his exposed throat.

The man Xoros had hit had recovered somewhat, and the two of them were grappling together against the wall, neither of them for the moment able to gain an advantage. 

Lara scooped up the dropped gun – a Colt 9mm pistol of some kind – and hit the man a blow to the base of his skull with its butt. As he started to go limp she pulled him off Xoros and swung him bodily across the hallway, headfirst into the far wall. He collapses on top of colleague and didn't make any move to get up.

Less than twenty seconds all told. She listened for any sign that the brief struggle had attracted anyone's attention, but it was difficult to tell over the sound of Xoros's heavy breathing and the distant commotion of panicked partygoers.

"That was . . . impressive." Xoros looked away quickly as he caught the look in her eyes. "It's this way. Not far now," he hastened.

Lara didn't really need telling. She could feel the closeness of the Erinyes, darkly oppressive. The link into her head made it feel like the back of her skull had been removed, exposing her brain to the air so that anyone could read her thoughts like an open book. It took a moment for her to realise that the soft scraping sound she could hear was her own teeth grinding together.

One slip. One mistake or fractional lowering of her guard. That's all it would take. Then it – _she; Alecto_ – would flood in, unstoppable, and she would be lost. It would be a relief. An end to this struggle; this insanity. An end to responsibility. Blissful freedom . . .

_No. Not a _chance_. You hear me?!_

Brass claws skittering. Rats in drainpipes.

_I'll turn this on myself before I let you in._ Lara held the pistol in front of her face. _You hear me bitch? I'll leave you to his mercies rather than let you have me._

"What's wrong?"

Lara shook her head. The immediacy of the presence had receded, though it was still there, heavy and brooding like the stormclouds outside. "Nothing. Just some . . . woman's troubles. Go on." She indicated with the gun that he should lead the way.

Another of Charron's men was standing guard outside a door. Between them they managed to take him down without too much commotion. 

"We're here."

That information was pretty much redundant. Lara tried the door. It was locked. "You have a key?"

He fumbled in his pockets for a few seconds before nodding. As he tried it in the lock a frown developed. Then he swore, turning away and punching the wall. "Bastard has had the lock changed. My own fucking home."

Lara dropped to her knees beside the fallen guard, rifling through his pockets. No key. The sense of what lay beyond the door was making her head pound. Abruptly she stood up and – aiming the gun so any ricochet was likely to miss her – pumped two bullets neatly and precisely into the lock. 

It still took a hard shoulder charge before the door gave with a sharp cracking sound. Off-balance Lara stumbled into the room beyond.

Waiting for her in the semi-darkness was a thing of metal and wings and razor talons, glaring at her with shining copper eyes.

* * *

The black angel stood with its head cocked to one side, as if listening to something. It appeared to be sniffing at the air.

Its form was blurred through the sheets of falling rain, but as Emil squinted at it, it took on greater definition, becoming more than just a black hole in the fabric of reality. After a couple of seconds the change became more obvious, the angel filling out into the full three dimensions and assuming the image of the statue that had birthed it. Its skin gleamed and reflected, as if it was made of metal, yet paradoxically it also managed to appear soft and warm – living tissue. _Erotic living flesh._ Its chest rose and fell. Little twitches of activity passed through unnaturally perfect musculature. Beads of water glistened on its exquisite breasts.

The first of the gunmen Emil had shot made a noise as he struggled to move from where he'd fallen. 

At the slight sound the angel's head swivelled around, locking onto the source. A smooth flex of its wings covered the gap between them in an effortless fraction of a second. Emil's throat clenched tight with dread.

The man was trying to crawl away with a single-minded, but ultimately pitiful, determination. Effortlessly graceful, the angel simply leant over and caught him, its hands taking a gentle hold on the man's head. Its thumbs lightly caressed his temples as it held him in place, tender and loving. 

Emil heard what sounded like a soft humming lullaby, piercing through the drumming rainfall – heartrendingly beautiful; utterly terrifying. The man's eyes had glazed over.

_No._

_No_.

__

Oh please god, no. Inside he was suddenly a gibbering child, alone in the dark.

Nothing happened.

The lullaby ceased. In its place all Emil could hear was the thudding of his heart over the falling rain. 

The angel released its grip on the man, its interest in him apparently spent. He slumped, yet was still obviously alive enough – he was breathing and retained enough muscle control to remain in his cowering crouch.

Somehow Emil still felt like he'd just witnessed an absolute abomination. A ritual rape, flaying and disembowelling rolled into one. 

Dread and horror fought each other for space. Yet absolutely nothing of consequence had happened. Visually. A paralysing inactivity consumed him as brain and senses struggled to reconcile their differences, each accusing the other of being a liar.

Emil's heart very nearly seized up completely when he realised that the angel was now looking straight at him.

Gorgeous baby blue eyes and soft rosebud lips. Joy unbounded, beyond the grasp of human sanity. Inwardly he screamed, although it didn't reach the surface. Paralysis had gripped him in an iron fist. The angel's wings flexed . . .

Then somebody shot it. 

The bullet . . . Well it didn't exactly miss, but somehow it didn't exactly hit either. It struck the area of space the angel was occupying somewhere around the back of its head and was simply gone. There was a suggestion of a flicker in the air, accompanied by the vague impression that time had somehow been rolled back a fraction of a second and re-edited. 

The angel turned on its attacker. The weirdly still, world-holding-its-breath sense that had come over everything since the lightning bolt had struck shattered. 

As the thing's gaze left him the paralysis faded. Emil forced his battered muscles into motion. It wasn't particularly graceful or elegant, but it just about did the trick. Stumbling, knowing that he was exposing himself to anyone who wanted to shoot him in the back but not particularly caring, he made a dash for safety. 

A shadow moved in the corner of his vision. It took a panicked moment before he realised it was Joanna – he'd forgotten all about her – and not the angel, pouncing on him. Somewhere behind him that wordless humming lullaby started again. He didn't look back.

They reached the position where Lomax and co were waiting. The night was alive with the sound of gunfire again, though it was all coming from Xoros's men now – and was no longer being aimed at them.

"What the hell is . . .?" Lomax apparently thought better of his question, cutting himself off before it was asked. "Time for that later. Get the hell out of here."

The lullaby stopped. Against his conscious will – _no I do not want to see!_ – Emil paused and looked back, over his shoulder.

Screaming, insane, impossible horror. The gates of hell thrown open. 

He managed to drag a breath into a throat that had contracted down to a pinhole, the world swaying vertiginously. Again nothing to see – the angel releasing its grip on the individual who'd shot it: the man simply standing there, not visibly harmed, his pistol dangling limply from one hand.

Simon's hand clamped round Emil's arm, dragging him forward after the rest of them, and the angel was lost from sight. He concentrated on running – keeping up the with the others; putting as much distance as he could between himself and the centre of the maze; trying to convince himself he couldn't hear the lullaby start up again.

If possible the rainfall intensified. It became impossible to see more than a few yards in any direction and was actually painful on the skin – tiny pricking needlepoints. The sound of it drumming on the gravel beneath their feet became a pervasive roaring, drowning out everything else (except for the lullaby; except for _that_).

Lomax said something – shouted – but his words were lost; washed away. They veered down another of the maze's twisting paths. 

Emil began to fancy that he could see patterns and eddies in the silver sheets of falling rain around them – telltales and traces of something tracking them. The walls of vegetation seemed to close in on either side. Close in and loom up higher and higher, over their heads, decades of growth compressed down into seconds. The path rippled beneath their feet, roots writhing in the ground like snapped electric cables. It began to feel horribly like they were running through the intestines of a gigantic living thing rather than the maze they had originally entered. He stumbled and nearly tripped.

Ahead, Hicks wasn't so lucky, tumbling as the ground beneath him twisted violently. Directly in front of Emil, Joanna managed to react quickly enough to hurdle him. Emil couldn't adjust his footing in time, colliding with the mercenary and going over too.

Panic bubbled. 

As he struggled to regain his footing on the shifting, boiling ground Emil thought he could see _things_ in the periphery of his vision; silvery faces formed out of the rain itself – sharp and malevolent. By the time he could focus on any one of them, it was gone, replaced by another in the opposite corner of his eye.

Desperation. _Belly of the beast. Belly of the fucking beast._ Stop and it'll digest you.

He tried to pull Hicks up after him, fighting the powerful urge to simply abandon the man. For once that scarred, still face showed emotion, Emil's own fear reflected and multiplied in the mercenary's normally calm, inexpressive eyes. 

Hicks's grip on his arm was like iron. Emil strained with every bit of strength he possessed but the man wouldn't budge. The faces were laughing. It was several seconds before he realised that the ground had split beneath the mercenary and a root resembling an angry python had coiled round his ankle, pulling him down.

The hole widened – a grinning maw, the root a tongue. Hicks began to slip. He tried to say something, but no sound came out that could be heard over the rain. The artificial voice box implanted in his throat had stopped functioning when the lightning bolt had hit. The tendons in his necks stood out like cables.

Hicks tried to speak again, frustration momentarily pushing aside the fear. One hand abruptly released its grip on Emil's arm and tried to get something from the leg pocket of his cargo pants. He immediately lurched another foot deeper into the hole.

"Give me your other goddamned hand!" Emil yelled. He could feel himself losing his grip. His shoulder joint – weakened from past injuries – was on fire from the strain.

The object Hicks had produced from his pocket was a combat knife. He tried to cut at the root but the way he was being stretched made it impossible for him to reach low enough. He slipped another six inches deeper.

"Your . . . Fucking hand!" Emil gritted his teeth. The rain was making his grip slippery. Hicks was pulled another few inches in. And another, halfway swallowed now.

Then, finally, Joanna was alongside them. She took the knife from Hicks's grasp and started hacking at the root with it. Emil caught hold of the mercenary's free hand and managed to arrest his slide into the ground. Hicks's mouth stretched wide in pain as he was suddenly stretched almost to breaking point.

The root refused to yield beneath the knife blade. Pestilent yellow sap leaked from the cuts Joanna was inflicting, but the inner core was as dense as steel cable. She stabbed down harder, sawing at it. The blade slipped, slicing through cargo pants and into the flesh of Hicks's leg. Hicks thrashed.

Another cut and the root gave slightly, slipping down until it was only gripping Hicks by his boot. Joanna quickly slashed the boot's laces, and both it and the root snapped downwards, vanishing into the maw. At the abrupt release of strain Emil fell over backwards, Hicks landing on top of him. The maw closed.

This time they were able to get back to their feet relatively unimpeded, although the ground continued to churn beneath them.

"Move!" Joanna yelled over the pounding rain.

Emil looked over his shoulder in the direction she was staring and blanched. The path behind them had vanished entirely, swallowed up by vegetation. Even now that vegetation continued to writhe and churn – insanely sped up time-lapse photograph – closing in rapidly on where they were standing. The gunfire from their erstwhile attackers had fallen terminally and terribly silent somewhere behind them, in the heart of that mess. 

He suppressed the urge to vomit.

Together – Hicks supported between them, his bare foot shod in blood – they broke into the best approximation they could manage to a run. More roots broke through the ground beneath them, clutching blindly, trying to drag them down. 

Somehow the three of them kept on going, staying ahead of the maze's clutches. All the time, through the fear, Emil had the nagging sensation that something was flying low overhead, shadowing their movements – the nightmare monster you could never, ever outrun no matter how hard you tried.

They caught up with Simon and Lomax, who'd finally noticed they were running on their own and turned back. Wordlessly Lomax took Joanna's place helping Hicks along, and they continued onwards, managing to stay ahead of the savage mass of greenery behind them by a matter of feet.

Minutes passed, long as hours. There was no sign of any end to the twisting hedgerows rising on either side of them. Emil saw more and more of the insubstantial silver faces, gathering and watching in the periphery of his vision, malevolently grinning. Laughing.

"How big is this fucking thing?" Lomax's voice, barely audibly over the rain, sounded raw – stretched to breaking point.

Not this big. Nowhere near this big, Emil knew. This morning it had been about fifty metres from one side to the other. Already tonight it felt like they'd covered miles, and there was no end in sight. Unlike when they'd entered there was no sign of light from the house. The maze had expanded to become the entire world, and it was intent on swallowing them whole.

"Illusion," he heard Joanna reply. She seemed almost calm.

The faces laughed even louder.

"_He's_ playing with us. Laughing at us while we scurry around like rats." Abruptly Joanna stopped.

"Joanna?"

She paid him no attention; simply took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and leapt at the towering wall of vegetation beside them.

"Joanna!" Fear spiked. She was killing herself. 

But the hedge just rippled where she struck it. She vanished into thin air.

"Joanna?" This time calling out to her, though if there was a reply he couldn't hear it.

"Follow her." Lomax sounded . . . _Scared?_ The wall of uncontrolled growth behind them was now too close to avoid.

_Oh shit_. Emil closed his eyes and made the leap of faith after her.

He stumbled as he landed. No thrashing mass of branches, vines and roots swept over him and tore him limb from limb. Around him the rain was still falling, but as he opened his eyes he could now see the house rising in front of him, lights flickering in its windows. 

They'd escaped. The maze was gone, back to its normal proportions behind them.

Letting out a deep gasping breath, shivers passing through his body as the adrenaline rush slowly subsided, Emil released his grip on Hicks, who sank slowly to his knees on the wet grass.

The feeling of relief didn't last long.

With a sighing whoosh the angel swept down out of the night sky, alighting gracefully on the lawn in front of them. The beneficent smile on its face was uncannily reminiscent of Luke Charron.

* * *

Lara blinked. The image of the Erinye, crouching before her, faded. In its place was simply a darkened room, curtains drawn across the windows.

Her eyes took several seconds to adjust well enough to the gloom to realise that there _was_ in actual fact someone seated in a chair directly in front of her. Then Xoros turned on the light, rendering all that unnecessary.

It was an Asian woman she saw, small and delicate enough to be mistaken for a child in some circumstances, although not now – her face contained a depth of despair that Lara didn't like to think could belong to anyone other than an adult. 

And she wasn't just sitting on the chair. It looked like she was set up to perform a Houdini style feat of escapology, smothered in manacles and chains of tarnished iron that appeared to weigh more than she did. There was far more than could possibly be required to restrain any one person, and that just contributed to the skewed impression that this was somehow just for show; a magic trick in the offing.

It took Lara several seconds to realise that, beneath all those bonds, the woman had been stripped naked. Only then did the smell that pervaded the room truly hit her.

The Asian woman stank. There was no other word for it. The air around her was filled with a miasma of stale sweat mixed with the sharper ammonia reek of urine and the wet heavy foulness of faeces. The smell was so powerful that Lara had to fight back the urge to vomit. How she'd failed to notice it the moment she stepped through the door she couldn't imagine.

Underneath the woman's chair there was a plastic bucket – the sole extent of her toilet facilities. From the look of it she'd been chained to this chair from the moment she'd arrived in the house and not been allowed to move from this spot since. And although she was obviously important enough to warrant being kept alive no one was taking much care of her.

Lara took a couple of steps towards the woman before she stopped.

Something was wrong. Something more than just the obvious.

Xoros was still hanging back by the light-switch, looking as if he was on the verge of fleeing, and the woman herself had scarcely reacted to their entrance. There was no straining against the chains holding her. No sound from behind the gag; no pleading or attempt to urge them to set her free. There hadn't even been the slightest of flickers of awareness in her eyes.

The shiny, sharp metal thing, crouching in the darkness.

She'd got one of them inside her. Lara felt her own guest suddenly clamouring for attention and had to fight down a surge of disorientation.

"You're the thief aren't you?" Realisation filled her voice. The person who had broken into her home and stolen Megaera, and helped start this whole mess rolling.

This time there was a flicker in the woman's eyes. For the first time Lara had the impression that she was aware of her as another person. 

"Don't worry, I'll get you out of here." Soothing, as to a young child.

Suddenly there was panic etched on the woman's face. Desperate, all-consuming panic, like she didn't want to be set free. As if, in fact, she was absolutely terrified of being released from the chains.

Lara reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder, hoping the contact would calm the woman. Her skin was feverish and clammy to the touch, and she tried to flinch away. Lara could feel her trembling.

The gag was so tight it wouldn't yield right away. Lara wasn't helped by the fact that the woman kept trying to twist away from her. When it did finally come free, she actually snapped at Lara viciously, trying to bite her fingers. Curds of foam had collected at the corners of her mouth, making her look rabid.

"Easy." Lara drew back from her, regarding the woman cautiously. "I'm trying to help you."

That drew a hoarse, barking response that Lara eventually realised was supposed to be laughter. The woman said something in garbled Cantonese, but it was too quick for Lara's rudimentary knowledge of the language. 

"If you help, put bullet in my head," she clarified. Even in English it was difficult to understand.

"Sorry. Not an option." Lara risked stepping closer again, bending down to inspect the mass of restraints. 

Without any warning white-hot pain spiked through her head. A low cry was dragged from the back of her throat and her vision blurred. She could feel _her_ trying to invade again, this time all attempts at subtlety abandoned. Claws raked and tore. Pain receptors fired in blinding starbursts. Without realising it she dropped to her hands and knees.

"Get out. Get out. Get out!" A metallic female face, barbed wire for hair, bullets for teeth, forcing its way in; burrowing, jaws gnashing. Screaming with effort, Lara focused the pain she was feeling into a tight ball and thrust it straight at the face. 

Everything whited out. When reality returned she was still on her hands and knees. Her face was wet and there was a hollow scraped out feeling inside. It was almost a surprise when she realised she still had control over her own limbs, albeit they were shaking. With a deep breath she forced herself upright.

"You have one of them too, don't you?"

Lara looked at the woman, surprised by the words. They were much more lucid than before. Just for an instant it appeared as if her eyes gleamed copper. "What do you mean?"

"Not like mine of course. Not yet anyway." More of that hoarse laughter, with its merest passing acquaintance to sanity. It quickly died. "But she's trying to get all the way in now, isn't she? And its becoming harder and harder to resist. You won't be able to hold your guard forever. She'll eventually find a crack . . . perhaps when you're asleep. And then . . . Well then you'll be lost. Just like me."

"We'll see, won't we?" Lara managed to keep the tremor out of her voice. "I think _she'll_ find I'm an extremely unpleasant person when she gets to know me."

"That's the spirit." The woman started laughing again. "Futile, but brave."

As Lara continued to watch her she turned transparent and insubstantial – an ephemeral shell into which Lara could see, way, way down. That glowing metallic thing at her core shone through to the surface, sharp, angular and alien. Now Lara realised that the chains binding her also extended inside her – or at least analogues of them did – drawn in fire rather than iron, binding and tormenting the creature within as it strained against them fiercely.

A blink and the disorienting vision dispersed, leaving just the chained woman. Tentatively Lara resumed her inspection of the restraints. "What's your name?"

"Her. Her name is Megaera." Lara saw rage and despair and fear. "Me. I'm no longer anybody, so my name doesn't matter."

"Just trying to be polite." Lara located one of the locks holding the chains. A quick inspection didn't inspire much confidence. It was way beyond her limited lock picking skills and it didn't look like a bullet would do a lot of good either. Then there was the strange design that had been melted into the back of it, making her fingertips prickle when they went near. "I'm a bit strange that way, but I sometimes like to know who I'm talking to."

"Hsu Yi," she finally responded. Her voice was barely audible.

"Hsu Yi?" Lara grunted. Not a name she knew. The chain itself looked like it would need about an hour's attention with a hacksaw, plus a healthy number of replacement blades – that or a welding torch. "I'd like to say it was nice meeting you Hsu Yi, but in the circumstances . . ." Lara looked back at Xoros who was hovering at the door, pretending to keep watch and looking distinctly nervous. "Could I have some help here?"

She saw his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed heavily. He nodded distractedly, hesitated, then crossed the room to them. "Grab that side of the chair and hold it steady. I'm going to break it. We can deal with the rest of the restraints when we've got her somewhere safe."

He nodded wordlessly again, looking completely out of his depth. Lara almost managed to feel sorry for him before she reminded herself that his problems were more than likely self-inflicted. And absolutely the least of her worries. 

Using the chains to brace herself she stamped down on the crossbeam between two of the chair legs, wood splintering, then snapping.

"No! No! What are you doing?" Hsu Yi started thrashing, her movements so violent that her restraints gouged into her flesh deeply enough to draw blood. "You can't! You don't realise what you're doing." She was sobbing. "If you release me, you'll release her. I don't know how long I can contain her."

"Hush," Lara started, struggling to sound soothing. _Shit. Too much noise. If she didn't shut up soon . . ._

Too late. The voice came from the doorway behind them, American accented and all too familiar. "I should listen to her you know Lara. She knows what she's talking about."

* * *

The angel raised its palm and all five of them dropped to their knees, bowing before its glory. None of them made a conscious decision to do so. It just happened, their bodies responding instinctively.

_And how could you not bow down before this paragon?_ An inner voice whispered.

It was the Messenger, Emil knew. He'd experienced a moment of calm epiphany – a small, still voice speaking inside – and now everything was clear.

The message it brought was of the coming; the dawn of a new age of man. _She_ was watching. _She_ loved. _She_ was preparing the way for the return. Then everything would be changed forever. The false religions of man would be shown for what they were; blasphemy and sham. They would be swept away, flotsam on the tide, and Mankind would be shepherded back towards the true path it had strayed so far from. Everything would be made right, and _She_ would rule over all in a golden age that would last forever. Eternal peace; eternal joy.

Who could possibly not want that?

Emil felt tears rolling down his cheeks, mingling with the rain. How could he have been so blind? How could he have got it all so wrong?

He could feel the angel – the Messenger, smiling just for him. Loving him despite the glaring flaws. I will show you how to atone, that smile said. I will help you regain your self-respect and feel worthy of _Her_ radiant love. There is nothing that _She_ cannot forgive, and nothing that will make _Her_ turn away from you.

It will of course require a small sacrifice. For your own sake, not for _Hers_.

Buried deep, something was screaming in warning. It was drowned out by the tides of bliss; the consuming urge to gain the Messenger's approval. 

_I will sacrifice anything_. _Absolutely anything._

_I know you will_.

Lomax closest to the Messenger. It beckoned to him. After a fractional hesitation the mercenary leader crawled forward on hands and knees until he was grovelling at the Messenger's feet.

_You. You will be anointed with my blessing and become._

Emil felt a pang of jealousy that it wasn't him being chosen, although it was quickly smothered by happiness. This was an example to them all – that they too might become, despite their multitude of grievous flaws.

"I thank you," Lomax kissed the Messenger's feet. He was weeping; all of them were weeping. "I am not worthy."

_Worthiness is not yours to determine._ With a light touch to his forehead, it bade Lomax rise to his knees. A sound, similar to the humming lullaby of earlier, emerged from its lips. Emil heard himself gasping in ecstasy.

The night sky lit up with the Messenger's radiance. Its beauty was overpowering; too much to bear. Gem-like patterns of colour sparkled. Perfume floated on the air – wildflowers and desire. It felt to Emil like his skin was being lightly carressed with feathers and rose petals, his nerve-endings quivering. 

The pleasure was curiously similar to absolute agony.

Vaguely – concentration was difficult, not to say irrelevant – he was aware of seeing the Messenger's genitals stiffen, then rise to erection. It slid them into Lomax's slackly waiting mouth_. My seed will transform you. Bind you close in _Her_ grasp._

In the cellars of Emil's mind something gibbered in horror, trying to break free. On the surface all was calm and gently floating.

Lomax's head was being moved rhythmically back and forth, compliant as a blow up sex doll. His skin was slowly darkening, first pink, then red, and then almost purple as the Messenger thrust so deeply into his throat that it choked him, cutting off his air supply. Everyone else continued to watch, smiling and unmoving.

They were being profoundly blessed.

"Jesus. What the hell is that thing? What the hell is it doing? What is going on?"

The woman's semi-hysterical voice struck a jarring, discordant note. Emil felt as if he'd just had a bucket of ice water flung in his face. Part of his mind struggled to cling onto the sensations of blissful epiphany, while the more rational part – the part that had been screaming in horror and pain – fought to re-establish control. It was like trying to run through treacle.

Everything blurred confusingly. Why was he struggling? All he had to do was be calm and listen to the Messenger. Everything would be okay. Everything would be good . . .

With a wrenching bellow of effort Simon managed to break the Messenger's grip, just for a fraction of a second. He fired off a short burst of gunfire at it from the compact MP5 he was carrying.

Pain exploded in Emil's head. It was like the lightning bolt that had almost struck him earlier. Everything went black and he collapsed onto his back, twitching spasmodically on the grass. Joanna, Simon and Hicks were similarly afflicted.

Lomax's eyes lost their glazed look as he suddenly became aware of what he was doing. He fell back from the Messenger, gagging – scrambling to get as far away from it as possible, his chest heaving.

The Messenger itself was little more affected by the gunfire this time than it had been earlier. The bullets hit it, then there was a subtle blurring effect and it was like they had never existed. The last couple did take slightly longer to undo than the others, and there was the fleeting impression that they had actually done some damage. But then they too were blurred out and rolled back, and the overall effect was still pretty much the same. 

With that threat passed into irrelevance, the Messenger turned its attention onto the source of the original interruption.

A straggling group of panicked partygoers, fleeing the carnage up at the house, had come to an abrupt halt at the scene being played out in front of them. The woman who had spoken let out a piercing shriek as the Messenger's gaze settled on her. A man standing beside her fainted. The others bore the look of people who had born witness to altogether more than the human mind was designed to take.

Emil stifled the urge to vomit. His stomach roiled with nausea and he burned with feelings of unbearable shame – of being used and violated, and simply standing smilingly by as it happened. 

_Later, you snivelling piece of shit._ That horrific, unearthly lullaby started up and he had to grit his teeth to prevent himself from screaming. _Act now. Self pity after._

He aimed his handgun at the back of the Messenger's head as it bent over the women – limp and pliant in its arms. Paralysing doubt struck; why even bother? He'd already seen that it was useless.

One of the men at the back of the group tried to make a run for it. The Messenger let go of the woman, who slumped limply to the ground. A single gesture had the man stopping in his tracks, as if caught on a fishhook. 

Slowly he was reeled around. The expression on his face was ghastly; stark terror warring with forced joy. He was dragged forward in ragged, stumbling steps. The other man with him cowered subserviently.

Emil gritted his teeth and pushed the doubts away. It may have been completely useless but the gun was the only weapon he had. He opened fire, holding down the trigger, pumping bullet after bullet into the Messenger's back. Next to him Joanna had regained her feet, unsteady, but she joined him in shooting the hermaphrodite angel.

Again the bullets flickered and vanished as they hit, the air distorting. The Messenger ignored them, pulling its victim in the final couple of yards.

Hicks, still on his knees, joined in the shooting, and Simon managed to recover his MP5 from the sodden grass, firing a sustained hail of bullets. Finally they started to have some kind of observable effect.

It was as if the Messenger simply couldn't quite edit reality fast enough to deal with the sheer volume of lead flying through the air. Some of the bullets finally found their way through, striking its metallic flesh and raising white-hot sparks.

The Messenger made a high keening noise, flinging the man it held away as easily as if he was a rag doll. Then it span, eyes blazing, lips peeled back to reveal a set of fangs that would have looked over the top in a great white shark. 

Lomax met it head on. He'd just finished heaving the contents of his guts up on the lawn and had the kind of look in his eyes that suggested he's lost it entirely – consumed with a rabid insanity that even the Messenger's glamour couldn't penetrate.

Just as it was about to sweep down on top of him he raised his gun – an MP5 the twin of Simon's – into the Messenger's face and unloaded at point blank range.

The shriek of pain was powerful enough to knock them all flat. There was a whoosh of displaced air, and the Messenger disappeared into the sky. Emil found himself staring after it, heart thudding.

* * *

"You bastard." It was Xoros who broke the silence as Lara and Charron stared at each other. The tension in the air was palpable.

"Technically accurate I suppose." Charron smirked.

"It was you wasn't it? You caused that . . . that . . ." Xoros was spluttering with rage. He looked as if he wanted to propel himself across the room and pound his face, but also that he didn't quite dare.

"That abomination? Is that the word you're looking for Mark?" His fingertips lightly caressed the ivory handle of his walking stick.

The scene should have been comical. A tall but slight man, completely unarmed and physically disabled, menacing two individuals armed with handguns, each of whom could have smashed him to a pulp without breaking too much of a sweat. Comedy was the last thing that came to mind however.

"You didn't have to fucking kill him!"

Charron continued as if Xoros hadn't spoken. "An interesting phrasing that, because from where I was standing there was only one abomination being committed tonight. Isn't that right Lara?"

Lara didn't answer. Her mouth was dry. She could feel the crackling power drawn tightly around the man in front of her. It made her skin prickle, stray strands of her hair rising up from her head and floating in the charged air. The weight of the pistol in her left hand felt strange and disconnected. So easy – in theory – to lift and point and fire. And there was a whispering voice inside urging exactly that action. So absolutely easy.

So impossibly hard.

Xoros was looking at her now. "Lara?"

"You know, don't you dear?" 

_Kill him! Kill him!_ A discordant duet, one voice within, the other from that thing bound inside Hsu Yi. _Kill the Magician_.

At the lack of response from her, Charron turned his attention back to Xoros. There was an edge of anger to the cordiality. It was well hidden, but Lara heard it clearly. "I'm referring to that . . . farce you put on this evening. That act of blasphemy. I simply restored the ceremony to a more historically appropriate form."

"Appropriate?!"

"As any good archaeologist or historian of ancient Greece will tell you, ritual castration was always the proper way of worshiping Artemis. You should be pleased Xoros. _She_ was there herself tonight, watching. _She'll_ be watching now until I open the way for her, closer than she's been for millennia. Already her messenger walks among us, spreading word of her coming, and the world itself reshapes itself in her honour. Can you not feel the difference?"

"You're mad."

"And you my friend, show a disturbing lack of faith. In fact, judging by the company you're now keeping it looks alarmingly like you've chosen to turn traitor."

Xoros's mouth worked but no sound came out. A bead of sweat ran down the side of his face. Lara, unbidden – by her own thoughts at least – raised her pistol, pointing it at Charron's head.

He caught the movement in the corner of his one remaining eye. "Oh dear, we're not going to have to go through all this again, are we?"

Lara could feel the subtle thrumming coming from the magazine within the grip beneath her hand – knew what would inevitably happen when she tried to shoot. It still took every single ounce of willpower she possessed to keep herself from pulling the trigger. She absolutely couldn't persuade that finger to lift though, or her arm to lower the gun.

_Look here you twit_. She formed an image inside her head of the gun exploding as she pulled the trigger, her hand disintegrating in a mass of fire and molten metal. _Is that what you want? You've got another body handy you can use to kill him I suppose? Feel free to fuck off and get that killed instead._

The arm holding the gun dropped reluctantly back to her side. Lara let out a breath. "No, just having a quick internal debate." She forced a smile. "I'm not going to be stupid enough to try shooting you again. See?" Her fingers opened, slightly unwillingly, and the gun fell from her fingers, clattering to the floor. Charron's gaze dropped reflexively to follow it.

Her right hand moved quickly to the slit up the skirt of her dress, conjuring a knife with a three-inch long double-edged blade from where it had been strapped to the inside of her thigh. Without pausing she lashed out with it, savagely hard.

He must have seen a flicker a movement; the hard glint of steel. His hand came up to deflect the blow.

The knife blade – surgically sharp – severed the tips off two of Charron's fingers. It was deflected from its path sufficiently so that it only sliced about a millimetre deep across his throat, and although a line of blood flowered, everything vital – jugular; windpipe; carotid artery – was left intact.

Lara tried to reverse the thrust, switching to a backhand stab aimed at his heart. The opportunity was gone though.

A mist of blood flew in an arc from the tips of Charron's severed fingers. One guttural syllable – a concentration focus rather than a magic word – and that blood became charged, the natural electricity from Charron's body used to draw in the static lingering from the storm.

Lara was blasted backwards across the room, slamming against the wall. She landed in a crumpled heap, unmoving, little curls of smoke rising from her body. Xoros only caught the edge of it, but he too collapsed – most of the muscles in his body spasming uncontrollably. Hsu Yi let out a shriek, which was quickly cut off as her jaw locked tight, the chains binding her becoming electrified.

Then silence fell. 

Lara groaned. She'd lost track of time. It could have been seconds or minutes. Her eyes finally managed to refocus, showing Charron still standing in the doorway. More likely seconds then. 

He'd wrapped his mutilated hand in the handkerchief from the breast pocket of his suit jacket. Already it was bright red. The collar and front of his shirt were similarly turning crimson as the blood from the cut across his throat spread. Although his gaze was directed towards her, he seemed to be looking at something through Lara rather than at her.

Standing beside him – Lara hadn't seen her arrive so it seemed almost as if she'd stepped out of thin air – was a very tall, imperious looking blonde woman. Lara vaguely remembered seeing her before, from a distance.

"I'll be fine Claudia." Charron's voice was a fraction stiff. "Simply a pertinent reminder to me to keep my ego in check." He smiled, a touch forced for once. "There is still a lot of work to do, and I realise now I must focus fully on our goal without letting myself get side-tracked."

"I'll arrange for a doctor to take care of your injuries."

"Where would I be without you Claudia?" The reply was absent, his thoughts obviously elsewhere.

"What would you like me to do with these . . ." Claudia's expression suggested she was being confronted with the task of cleaning up the leftovers of a particularly excessive party.

Xoros chose that moment to make a noise, in the process of slowly dragging himself up the wall to his feet. Charron's attention swung, shark-like, onto him.

"Secure him somewhere," He said after a moment's thoughtful pause. "This side of alive preferably, but I'll leave the details to you. It shouldn't matter in a few days one way or the other, but I'll observe proper procedure anyway. The Circle always appreciate the opportunity to debrief a traitor."

At that moment Xoros made it to his feet. He swayed from side to side for a second or so before his legs buckled and he collapsed again.

"And what about her?" Completely dispassionate.

Charron looked thoughtful. "Part of me would like to keep her Claudia. My old friend has such high hopes for her, and I'm starting to see why." He glanced down at his kerchief wrapped hand. His blood had soaked all the way through and was starting to drip onto the floor again. "But I've learnt my lesson, and anyway it'll be irrelevant soon. Kill her, if you'd be so kind. Right now will be fine."

Claudia produced a stainless steel pistol – a Ruger P93 9mm – from inside her jacket and aimed it at Lara.

Lara was still too dazed to react in anything other than the most abstract of ways. Body and brain had yet to re-establish a proper understanding on how to go about the complicated business of moving. _Oh well, it was always going end up like this sooner or later. Good innings and all that. Can't say it's not been fun . . . Am I scared? Hmm, seems not. Probably should be. Not to worry._

She wasn't aware of the strange guttural words that issued from her lips until after she'd spoken them. Even then she had no idea what she'd said.

She did however see Charron's expression freeze in shock.

Just as Claudia pulled the trigger he knocked her hand aside. Instead of putting a hole in the centre of Lara's forehead, the bullet hit the wall about a centimetre from her left ear. Plaster splinters stung her cheek.

"You!" Charron took a small step backwards as if he'd suddenly found himself in the same room as a venomous snake. "Alecto."

"Hold fire," he ordered Claudia tightly as she looked to him, a trace of confusion showing on her face.

Stung back to reality, Lara pulled herself to her feet. _Shut up and do as I say._ She directed the thought inwards. The thing in her head half laughed and half howled.

"Well this is a pleasant surprise." Charron let out a low chuckle. Claudia kept her gun trained resolutely on Lara. "Aren't you a clever girl? And here I was thinking I had you safely under lock and key."

"You won't escape me, or my sisters," Lara improvised, trying to preserve the illusion that was apparently keeping her alive. Claws scraped in the back of her thoughts. Something scrabbled and hissed. "Release us now Magician and perhaps we will show mercy."

"How magnanimous." Charron had now made sure he was slightly behind Claudia. "I'll think about it."

It was Lara's turn to laugh. The insanity in it was not entirely faked. Eight feet to the window. She had no idea what it overlooked. "Now set her free." Her nod indicated Hsu Yi, who was apparently insensate.

"I'm afraid I'm not carrying the keys."

"Then get them." Lara wasn't sure how long she could maintain the illusion. _Illusion? You think this is illusion?_ Mocking. Scraping metal.

"Or?" Charron's discomfiture had to all appearances fled. Suave, knowing, and in control had reasserted themselves. Claudia's gun remained an impassable obstacle.

_He can't kill you yet. Not as long as he thinks you're her_. It wasn't particularly reassuring. She was very rapidly running out of ideas.

"Or I'll get angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry." Her gaze alighted on the fallen knife. The edge of the blade looked like it had half melted.

"I think I'm going to have to take that chance."

Lara took a step towards Claudia and Charron, incidentally putting herself in range of the knife.

"Don't." Claudia's rebuke was cold.

Lara bared her teeth. "Oh, shoot me please. I'm getting tired of sharing with this uppity bitch."

"I don't know how you got into her Alecto, but you're just as badly trapped as you were in the statue." Charron smiled. "Shall we try to be reasonable here?"

"Come here and let me touch you, Magician." Lara flinched inwardly in shock. Those weren't her words. _Don't do that._

"Something the matter?" His smile broadened. "Proving an awkward host is she?" Lara got the distinct impression that the focus of his concentration was elsewhere. She could sense the power building around him.

_Now or never, girl. _

Lara found the knife with the toe of her shoe. A flick of her foot sent it looping upwards, towards Claudia's face. Without waiting to see the result she span and sprinted, leaping straight at the window, her arms coming up to shield her face.

Glass exploded around her, and behind her Lara heard Claudia's gun go off. The bullet didn't find her flesh. 

Then cool rainwater struck her in the face and she was plummeting free, into the night.

* * *

Luke Charron walked slowly across to the shattered window frame, his limp more pronounced than usual. Rain blew in diagonally, soaking the floorboards. With his uninjured hand he reached out to touch a jagged tooth of glass that remained in the window frame. Its edge was dark with blood. "Claudia?"

"Yes Luke?"

"Come here please." 

As she moved to stand in front of him he reached up and touched her forehead with his bloodstained fingertips. There he traced a pattern that resembled a cross with the bottom and left arms joined, then murmured something beneath his breath. Just for an instant the design seemed to glow, the light reflecting a moment later in Claudia's eyes.

"You feel her, don't you."

After a short pause Claudia gave a fractional nod.

"You know what you must do. The link demands."

The strange light in her eyes returned fleetingly. She gave another minute nod.

"My dear. The time has come for you fulfil the purpose you were created for. It is a little sooner than I had imagined, and not quite the circumstances I'd anticipated, but I know you will do me proud." His thoughts seemed to drift for moment. In anyone else it might have been taken as misty-eyed sentiment. "I'm afraid you will have to kill Lara after all. I shouldn't have stopped you just, but it was . . . unexpected. And then you will have to take Alecto into yourself. It is unlikely to be easy, but you were made just for this. You were made to contain all three, and you will succeed."

Claudia's expression was dutiful.

"I'm sorry. You know all of this better than I do. I'll bring forward our plans and set the final stage in motion while you hunt, so that you don't have to contain _her_ any longer than is necessary."

She hesitated, looking pointedly at his still bleeding hand.

"Don't worry yourself. I'll get it taken care of at the first opportunity. Now go."

A final nod and she turned away from him. She paused briefly before the shattered window, seemingly to collect her bearings. Then she leapt through, after Lara. Her movements held a speed and power that was more than human.

Charron looked away just in time to see that Xoros had made it to his feet again, this time much steadier than before. His face was twisted with a fury that had swept away the fear and indecision of earlier; indeed bordered on madness. He charged straight at him.

Before Xoros got halfway there was another crack of electricity. It was considerably weaker than the first, but it was aimed directly at him this time. He hit the floor at Charron's feet and a sharply measured blow to the side of his skull with the walking stick kept him there.

Suddenly Charron staggered, needing to use the walking stick to catch himself. He was hyperventilating and his vision gyrated in slow loops. Blood splattered from his wounded hand across the floor in coin-sized droplets. It was several seconds before he managed to reassert control, and even then he felt dangerously weak.

Get the hand treated; rest; recuperate. For what he had planned, he knew all too well that he needed every bit of strength he could draw upon. He knew too that there wasn't as much time as he had originally factored – there would be no week of careful meditation and mustering of his powers. There might not even be a day.

He grinned savagely. You worked with what you had and no plan ever survived contact with the enemy; that was even truer in business than it was in war. And you succeeded. There was no other option.

Before he could do anything else though, there was one thing he absolutely had to check.

He walked down the landing as fast as he could, breath wheezing, walking stick tapping out a staccato rhythm. A trail of blood droplets marked his route, like the bread crumbs dropped by Hansel and Gretal. 

At the door to his room he paused, tracing a pattern on the wood before turning the handle and stepping through. As he did so there was the sense of something dark and menacing, drawing back from him and baring its teeth as he passed. A pity he couldn't have used the guard dog on Hsu Yi – it might have averted a lot of trouble – but you couldn't trust it on its own around human meat. The alarm glyphs he'd placed had been the best he could manage, and they had – in their limited way – served their purpose.

He immediately crossed to one of two large steel boxes. It was incredibly heavy, lined with half an inch of lead and . . . other substances. The lid had no visible locking mechanism, or indeed any other way of opening it. Anyone seeking to get into it manually would have needed either explosives or a lot of patience with an arc lamp. To Charron it sprang open with a touch and a whisper light manipulation of power.

Looking at the box's contents, his brow furrowed.

Not what he had expected. Not what he had feared. He lifted the brass figurine and held it thoughtfully, trying weigh up what he was sensing. Alecto was still inside. Just holding the thing made him absolutely sure of that – her presence and her hatred shone for him like a beacon.

So what then, had he sensed in Lara?

Could she have been faking him somehow? 

He began to turn the figurine absently in his hands. No, he decided. The words and the attitude perhaps, but he had felt Alecto within Lara in a way that was beyond her ability to counterfeit. She had no talents in that direction, he was absolutely certain.

He froze.

Underneath his fingertips he could feel a small crack in the figurine's surface, the edges of it rough enough to suggest it had happened only recently. After a couple of seconds his lips spread into a wide smile as it suddenly became clear to him. "Lara won't let you all the way in, will she?" He laughed. "You've had your escape route all along, except you can't use it because you've found a bitch who's every bit as stubborn as you are. How absolutely delicious."

Still grinning he tossed the figurine back into the box as carelessly as if it had suddenly become no more important than a piece of rubbish. "Well dear, I've seen your cards now, and whatever happens I know I've got your hand beat."

* * * * * * *

Dimitriou Pappas's eyes snapped open and he sat bolt upright in his chair.

He hadn't been sleeping – in the circumstances that had been impossible – but his thoughts had been drifting, back into different, more pleasant times. The summons into the present was harsh and rude. Eyes straining, he could see almost nothing in the darkness. The only hint of illumination was a faint residue from the streetlights outside, pale fingers penetrating a crack in the drawn curtains.

He could feel his pulse tripping over, thin and fast. There was a tight pain seated deep within his chest. His skin felt clammy and a line of sweat ran down the middle of his back. For a second he was absolutely certain there was somebody – something – in the room with him, and was even able to hear it breathing – behind him and kept deliberately shallow in an effort not to be heard.

The impression faded. There was absolute silence. Somewhere outside a motorbike engine gunned, making him jolt.

_Who's there?_ He caught the question on his lips, suddenly afraid that it would give away his position to the intruder.

_There is no intruder, you idiot. _

He forced himself to let out the breath he was holding. It was only making the pain in his chest worse. _Doctor. Friend, you must see a doctor_. He'd made that promise around six months ago and had yet to keep it. 

_When this is over._

Awareness of the event that had startled him from his reverie slowly returned.

It hadn't been anywhere close. At least not in the immediate neighbourhood, and certainly not from anywhere inside his home. Although he couldn't tell exactly where it had come from, he didn't really need to. He knew, in the same way that he knew where the sun would rise come morning.

Xoros's house. 

The playboy. The dabbler. 

Dimitriou had long formed the impression that the man he had been assigned to watch was, ultimately, a harmless individual. Oh, he could be dangerous enough if you went out of your way to make an enemy of him – daddy's money and the old networks made sure of that. But on the larger scale he was an irrelevance. Someone whose ambitions extended no further than the trivial little games he liked to play – his decadent indulgences.

To be honest, the situation had suited Dimitriou perfectly – a semi-retirement where he could grow old by the sea, away from the real struggle

A bitter little smile flashed across his lips, then faded. All in all, Xoros must be feeling something very similar to what he himself had experienced a couple of days ago – when the phone had rang unexpectedly. When he had been told that, in essence, the Devil was coming to Thessaloniki and Armageddon was following on his coattails. 

It was the feeling of the cosy little world you had built so carefully around yourself coming crashing down around your ears.

The smile vanished. Had that been _it?_ Defeat. The signal of _her_ coming into this world?

No, he decided after the panic had momentarily risen so strongly that it prevented him from drawing breath. He would have more than just felt it if that was the case. _That _would have been a Hiroshima event for the city.

This was merely a disturbance; a first definitive step towards bringing her return.

The fear subsided only partially. Around him the air still felt wrong – disturbed. Senses that he'd thought buried decades ago were prickling. She may not have come yet, but something had – something dark and something nasty

In his youth Dimitriou too, like Xoros, had been a dabbler, although his dabbling had taken him down altogether more dangerous routes. What he was experiencing now brought that all flooding back, as if it had happened only yesterday.

_You have to do something old man._

_No._ He found himself clutching the arms of his chair tightly. _No. I put that behind me long ago. The others will take care of it. Like it is their job to._

Really?

He told the inner voice to shut up. It didn't pay any attention.

_You think they even know what they are up against? Know like you do?_

_Shut up!_

****

Funny isn't it. You like playing the boss. The man in control. But when it comes time for you to do anything . . .

Dimitriou expelled a long breath, then forced himself to rise from the chair. 

Normally he had no trouble navigating his home in the dark, but tonight everything seemed subtly different; slightly out of place. He jarred his hip painfully against the corner of a table.

The sense that there was someone else in the room with him returned. There wasn't he knew, but no matter how hard he tried he just couldn't shake the feeling. A grimace twisted his face.

He hesitated as he reached the door that led down to the cellar. _No turning back once you step through Dimitriou._

The steps beyond plunged deeply into pitch-blackness. There was a slight dankness to the air that wafted up in his face. There was no light switch. Electricity hadn't really felt . . . appropriate. Fumbling down by his ankles he came up with a candle and a box of matches, lighting a small, flickering flame with trembling hands. To its meagre glow he began his faltering descent.

Several times he had to pause, swept over by feelings of vertigo. There was a nagging fancy that if he slipped he wouldn't fall just the ten or so feet to the cellar floor. That instead he would tumble down and down for all eternity.

_Perhaps like you deserve._

He slumped in relief when his feet finally touched solid earth. His heart was pounding now, the pain in his chest worse than ever. He tried to relax, but his body refused to comply.

Puffs of dust rose up beneath his faltering footsteps. The air itself was laden with it, tickling the back of his throat and making him cough. The flickering light from the candle was barely enough to pierce the gloom, casting eerie and distracting patterns of shadow.

As he continued forward something brushed across his face, a finger-light caress. Panic rose again, bitter in his throat, before he realised it was only one of the multitude of cobwebs festooning the ceiling. His foot kicked a mouldy cardboard box, disturbing a nest of silverfish and centipedes, which skittered rapidly away – out of reach of the invading light.

It had been years since Dimitriou had set foot down here and it showed. He had simply shut the door one day and more or less erased the cellar from his memories. Something he was around every day, but simply paid no conscious attention to.

_Still not too late to turn back you know. You could go to bed; go to sleep. Doesn't that sound so much better than this?_

It did, but Dimitriou kept going.

At the far end of the cellar he came to what he was looking for. It was a chest – a huge brassbound wooden thing that, like everything else in the cellar, had been buried in an incoming tide of dust and cobwebs. It felt strange looking at it, like looking at a part of himself that had been boxed away for so long he had forgotten it had ever existed.

Cautiously he placed the candle on the floor. His hands felt sweaty and he paused to wipe them on the front of his trousers before bending down grabbing hold of the chest by the corner. It was very heavy. Much heavier than he remembered, but then he had been a rather younger and fitter man when he had closed it and put it down here – out of sight and out of mind.

The catch to open it had been pushed against the wall. At first the chest wouldn't budge, pain knifing up Dimitriou's back as he strained to move it. Suddenly, with an almighty squealing-scraping sound, it came out from the wall in a rush. Dimitriou sprawled over backwards.

After he'd righted himself, covered in dust and assorted other filth from the floor, he was able to manoeuvre the chest the rest of the way round. His breath was coming raggedly by the time he'd finished, and he was forced to lean heavily against its bulk for over a minute before his vision had stopped swimming.

The lid had warped somewhat from the damp of many Thessaloniki winters. Dimitriou ended up tearing the flesh of his palm on a jagged splinter in the struggle to force it open. 

He stared as droplets of his own blood fell to the cellar floor and splattered across the chest's contents, gleaming darkly – mockingly – in the candlelight. _See old man, this is meant to be._

Shaking slightly he reached inside and carefully lifted something out. 

It was a book, battered, but not particularly old, and relatively slim – strangely ordinary looking in fact. It obviously had an impact on him though, and he closed his eyes as he held it, his blood seeping into the card of its binding.

_Time to begin old man. If you still have the nerve._

* * *

An old cemetery. 

It had fallen into disuse over half a century ago, full to the point of overflowing. Over the intervening years there had been periods where the local authorities had tried to keep the place in good order, but now wasn't one of them.

Beyond the rusting wrought-iron gates most of it looked distinctly overgrown, several of the gravestones knocked askew or even flat – drunken old men. Even those that still stood upright were encrusted so heavily with lichen that it was all but impossible to make out the inscriptions on them. Near the centre, a mausoleum stood under the twisted, witchy bulk of a dead tree. Its door had been kicked in, a scrawl of blue graffiti faded to illegibility on one of its cracked, marbled-clad sides.

If this had been a more affluent area of the city then perhaps the cemetery would never have been allowed to reach this state. However, most of the locals – incomers and migrants in the main – needed to expend too much concern on the living for there to be much left over for the dead of strangers.

The watcher found that he could see strangely well, despite the night and the pouring rain. The pale-brownish glow of the city's streetlights – reflecting off the underside of the low clouds – was sufficient that he could make out details almost as well as if it were day.

In the shadows of the mausoleum's doorway, out of the deluge, there was a hint of movement. The watcher's eyes focused on it, zooming in closer for a better look.

It was a vagrant, sleeping rough. There was a clear bottle tipped over on one side that had once contained some sort alcohol. Next to it was a puddle of congealing vomit. More vomit was clotted in the man's ragged beard.

The man appeared to be caught up in the middle of a nightmare, his eyelids flickering rapidly. His limbs twitched spasmodically, one booted foot beating an idiot rhythm on the cracked stone tiles. 

The watcher looked away. This wasn't what he was here for. He was here because the power had drawn him. He could feel it still, hot and prickling.

Another movement, out among the gravestones. This time the watcher stayed where he was and simply observed.

It was . . . patterns in the rain; dancing silvery traces of something he couldn't quite discern. It left the watcher confused, unsure what he was witnessing except that it wasn't a natural phenomenon. A whistling sound struck up, playing in his ears, eerie and fluting over the drumming raindrops.

Above one of the graves a ball of yellow phosphorescent light popped into being, bobbing gently on the air like an errant will o' the wisp. 

As the watcher stared it dropped suddenly, hitting the ground with a hissing sound – an egg being cracked onto a hot griddle. There it exploded, fingers of light shooting out across the grass, fanning out in wildly erratic patterns that spread rapidly throughout the entire graveyard. Where they struck the gravestones themselves, they left behind weirdly glowing auroras of St. Elmo's fire.

Then it was over as quickly as it had begun, the light fading to nothing. Behind him the watcher heard the vagrant let out a low, incoherent moan.

The ground started to rumble. It was subtle but definite, and rather different in quality to an earthquake – those the watcher was familiar with. Abruptly the earth above one of the graves started to bow upwards into a peak. After about a minute the strain from below became too much and the ground ruptured in a shower of wet mud.

Similar eruptions began to occur right across the cemetery. 

The dead were rising, here and right across the city. The watcher's vision faded.

* * *

A yacht in Thessaloniki harbour, the city a backdrop drawn in pinpoints of light. Its sails were furled and rain lashed across its deck in heavy sheets. Around it the sea was calm, gently lapping against the jetty it was moored to. There was a strange bubbling, hissing sound, although in the darkness it was difficult to discern the cause.

The watcher stared at the boat, uncomprehending. Why was he now here? Why not the graveyard?

A light came on below deck, a conversation between a man and woman audible in rapid fire German. Although the watcher didn't speak the language he caught the gist.

Woman was worried about something.

Man was tired and had just been woken up and thought that the woman was imagining things. He wanted them to both go back to bed.

Woman insisted she had heard something.

Man told her that _he_ hadn't.

Woman said _she_ could still hear something.

Man said he didn't care, and was going back to bed.

Woman said fine.

Man said I know its fine. There was the sound of a cabin door slamming violently shut.

Woman shouted after man, casting aspersions on his parentage and sexual prowess.

For a short time there was silence, then there was another thud, much quieter than before. It took the watcher a moment to realise it was simply the noise made by the woman hitting the cabin door and not something more sinister. She was muttering; a continual stream of invective aimed at her cowardly husband.

The watcher remembered exactly why he had never married.

Finally he got to see her as she climbed up the steps from below deck. Held above her head in one hand, the light it shed swaying erratically back and forth, was an electric lantern. It illuminated the top of head and her dyed red hair well before the rest of her came into view.

As she stumped across the deck, swinging the beam of light from the lantern this way and that, the rain soaked rapidly through her white cotton nightdress, turning it transparent. It would have been a rather more rewarding piece of voyeurism if it had occurred twenty-five years and fifty pounds ago. 

The watcher turned his gaze away from her, feeling embarrassed and slightly grubby. In the lantern light he was finally able to see the water surrounding the boat clearly. It was from this the hissing, bubbling sound was emanating. He stared.

Thick glutinous red, boiling like the contents of a witch's cauldron, stretching as far as the lantern light illuminated. Something pallid and swollen emerged, grabbing onto the side of the yacht with a wet slapping sound. The woman let out an ear splitting scream.

The seas became as blood. Again the watcher felt his vision fade.

* * *

A low growling sound. The watcher was unable to locate its source, but in the gloom it sounded huge – unstoppable. Despite the fact that he was bodiless, primal fear took hold. It was an effort not to simply flee blindly.

The growling changed into barking. A dog. From the evidence of that thunderous, rasping cough of a sound it was a very big dog indeed. A veritable hellhound.

Slowly the watcher came to the conclusion that he was standing (was that the right word?) in the dingy hall of somebody's home, the barking coming from the yard outside. As the barking continued, unrelenting, he heard the sounds of footsteps coming down the stairs behind him. A man's voice, bleary with drink, yelled at the dog to shut the hell up.

The dog's response was to bark even louder, frenzied. The watcher shuddered at the sound – the raw hatred in it.

_Hatred?_ In an animal? _You're projecting friend_. He couldn't shake the feeling though.

The man yelled at the dog again. Its name was apparently Caesar – or Seizer perhaps. There was a banging sound now to accompany the barking, along with the sound of a chain rattling. 

The man swore. "Do I have to beat some sense into you, you fucking mutt?" He scratched at his belly through his stained vest, then – as the dog's racket continued unabated – picketed up a heavy length of wood.

As the man reached the door the barking ceased abruptly.

"That's better." After the silence had persisted for about five seconds, he started to turn away from the door. The watcher felt sudden, giddy relief.

Then there was a loud cracking sound, wood splintering. The savage, reverberating snarl seemed to come from right outside the door – something monstrous. The man jumped back reflexively.

"Why you . . ."

_No_, the watcher wanted to yell as he saw the man start towards the door again. _Don't_. He was just a watcher though, and couldn't do anything to intervene. The door opened and the man stepped out, into the rain.

The watcher saw the dog then – some kind of Great Dane crossbreed that was almost four feet at the shoulder. He could see the animal's ribs through its sodden grey coat. Even so it must have weighed two-hundred and fifty pounds plus. Ropes of saliva hung from its jaws and its eyes were red rimmed and mad. The post it had been chained to had snapped and was dragging behind it in the dirt.

"Caesar . . ."

The dog flew at its owner, bowling him over backwards, all of its weight landing down on his chest. The stick flew from the man's hand and the dog's jaws clamped down on his forearm as he struggled to protect his throat.

There was a snapping sound, like a soggy branch breaking. The man screamed. A snarling rumbling came from deep within the dog's chest, its head twisting violently from side to side, blood and saliva flying. 

Flesh tore. Blood jetted. The man's screaming grew to an unbearable pitch before cutting off abruptly, replaced by a liquid gurgling. Then even that ceased and all there was the sound of the dog feasting – flesh tearing.

Somewhere close by another dog howled. A split second later a second joined in, then a third and a fourth, then so many it was impossible to distinguish individual sounds amid the cacophony. The night resounded to their chorus.

And the beasts rose up against their masters. Everything dissolved.

* * *

The watcher was flying.

He could hear the wind whistling, streaming rapidly past, although he couldn't feel it. The lights of Thessaloniki sparkled far below; a myriad of jewels set in smoky coloured velvet. It should have been beautiful – breathtaking and exhilarating. 

All he could feel was fear.

What he was searching for was close now. The intruder. He sensed it, somewhere up here in the sky with him, watching as the city slowly unravelled and remade itself far below. As he looked around the watcher was unable to find any trace of it, but that did nothing to defuse the certainty of his feelings.

Uncomfortable knowledge sprouted and took root. Whatever he was searching for was searching for him in turn. He had been careless, and somehow it had become aware of him.

Directly below, he realised abruptly, dragging his attention back to his surroundings, was Xoros's house. It should have been obvious from the start, he thought. _Where else would I be going?_

The building glowed to his senses, a beacon against the crackling background hum. Just looking at it caused the fear to redouble. The stone itself had taken on a dark, mocking life. As he stared down at the gaping hole in the roof, rimmed with shattered glass that resembled ragged teeth, he got the distinct impression that something was looking back up at him.

There was a distant rattling sound from below. Gunfire, he realised. It seemed less important now than it would have been to his earth-bound form. Tiny specks no bigger than ants scurried across the house's lawns, streaming down towards the gates. Vague distortions formed in the air around them, drawn to the fear and panic – feeding. The watcher looked away.

Something swooped past him, its passage buffeting him violently.

He had a fleeting impression of wings and metallic skin – a gleaming humanoid torso. Then it was past, leaving him spinning and disoriented. Terror clutched tight

Above him a split had formed in the clouds. Through it radiated a lambent silver glow. His gaze was drawn upwards, into that split . . .

Up, up. Walls of cloud, spiralling away into infinity, thunderous and heaving with latent energy. Beyond, the light at the end of the tunnel – the moon. He felt himself being dragged upwards, as if by strings, a force stronger than gravity compelling him to rise into the clouds.

He screamed. 

No, that wasn't the moon. He fought for control, straining to stay the inexorable rise. It was an eye, unfathomably vast and cold. _Her_ eye. He screamed again, fighting against the grip reeling him in. 

Sanity temporarily fled. 

The watcher tried to lash out, although in his present state he had no body to lash out with. He flailed all about himself in desperation, trying to focus a power he hadn't drawn on for decades – and had indeed deliberately tried to forget.

Suddenly the grip on him slipped. His rise upwards stopped.

He gasped his relief, for the moment drifting out of control, too drained to act. The clouds above him had closed over again and the moon – her eye – was no longer visible.

Then it – the thing that had swept past him – was back. An angel he saw, or something that wore an angel's skin. It was smiling at him, humming a lullaby that calmed his senses and allowed him to relax . . .

_No. _

This was the thing he was searching for. The invader. 

_Too powerful; too majestic. You cannot fight it._ He dragged his gaze away from the angel, struggling against that invasive song. 

_Body. You must return to your body_. He could barely sense itthough, never mind return to it. _Too far away._

The angel swooped, its smile broadening into something that managed to be both grin and feral snarl. Below him the lights of the city began to wink out one by one, a spreading tide of darkness.

* * *

Dimitriou came back to himself with a juddering shock.

The pain in his chest was so powerful initially that he thought he was suffering a heart attack. Red-hot iron bands seemed to be constricting his chest, making it impossible to breathe. Then, finally, he managed to take some air into his lungs and the bands loosened their grip.

He gasped and wheezed like a broken tuba.

In his mind's eye the Angel's eyes were still there, boring into him. Shudders wracked his shoulders and his eyes watered, pseudo-tears streaming down his cheeks.

Around him the four candles he'd lit earlier flickered wildly, although there didn't seem to be any draft to stir them. Outside the circle he'd prepared miniature whirlwinds of dust cavorted as if possessed.

It had seen him. 

Dull certainty filled Dimitriou, radiating from his marrow outwards. And not just the astral body he had projected out there in order to search for it. It had seen the real _him_, here in the cellar. Now it could track him down, following his scent like a bloodhound. The iron bands threatened to tighten again and crush him – an egg in a steel gauntlet.

_This was what you wanted old man._

_No. This, is what I had to do._

_And all in vain._

The candles stopped flickering, the ruddy light they cast steadier now, and the dust devils collapsed back to the floor. The excess energies that had animated them had dissipated, leaving only stony deadness in their place.

_Know your enemy. _

Dimitriou gave an involuntary chuckle, then leant over to one side, succumbing to a fit of coughing. Well now he knew, for all the good it would do him, and she had been brought so close that she could almost reach across the boundaries and touch the world.

He went stiff. _What was that?_

The hairs on the back of Dimitriou's neck lifted and his sweat slicked skin suddenly itched abominably. _By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes._

He tried to grab hold of the fleeing remnants of power from his casting before they could bleed away entirely, but it was futile. Already he felt like he'd been scraped raw inside by what he'd attempted, and the thought of trying to draw the power again made him want to vomit. _It'll kill me. My heart will burst._

The only thing he could hope for now was that the others would be able to find a way to stop Charron completing what he was attempting. Suddenly the itching sensation intensified dramatically. He doubted very much that he'd survive to see the morning.

He drew in steadying breaths, steeling himself for a last, desperate stand. One of his hands shook. Maybe it would be better for the power to burst his heart than to fall into the grasp of the monster he had seen.

He tried.

* * * * * * *

It was the day after midsummer, and dawn never came. 

The sun was up, Lara knew. She'd been aware of the subtle brightening of the sky from pitch black to cobalt blue. Her watch, if it was still accurate, also confirmed that sunrise should have occurred around two hours ago. 

That was about all she had to go on though

_All we need now is a good old-fashioned rain of fire and perhaps a bout of speaking in tongues._

The cloud cover overhead was so black and low that she half fancied she could reach up and touch it (or more disturbingly; that it could reach down and grab her). Somewhere in the near-distance there was an arid rumbling of dry thunder.

Where she was exactly she couldn't say. After leaping through the window she'd lost control, and a long patch of her memories had taken on the quality of a feverish half remembered nightmare. Perhaps the worst part was that she couldn't remember how or when she'd regained control again – whether she'd prised it from her 'guest', or it had simply been relinquished to her for some reason.

_Just be grateful you're in control now and quit your whining._

She came to a halt, dropping into a half crouch, feeling her muscles trembling. 

No. That wasn't good enough.

The air burned in her lungs. Lactic acid build up had transformed her limbs into lead weights. _Christ. How far did I run exactly?_ Now that she'd stopped moving weariness hit home like a sledgehammer.

Lara stared out over the low, broken sandstone cliff at the sea. The water, about fifteen metres below, looked cloudy and opaque, lapping turgidly against the base of the cliffs. It took a moment to realise that the redness wasn't simply an optical illusion brought on by a combination of dim light and exhaustion.

_Looks like you got your rain of fire, girl_. Or the next best thing. 

Probably algae, she told herself and looked away. Legs trembling, she climbed back to her feet. Something struck her hard on the back of the neck.

When awareness returned Lara found herself lying sprawled on her back. A ringing noise filled her skull. There was someone standing over her, though she couldn't make out more than a dim silhouette. Groaning, she tried to rise. The figure put a foot in the centre of her chest, slamming her back down again. Then it leant close.

It was Claudia. The face – inches above her own – was harsh, adorned with what looked to be smears of war paint. Her eyes were doll-like – blank and emotionless.

Lara felt Claudia's fingers touching her forehead, smearing on something warm and wet. The woman's voice murmured something she was unable to comprehend. A moment later a gun-barrel was levelled with the middle of her face.

Lara blinked stupidly

A finger squeezed down smoothly on the weapon's trigger. Lara instinctively lashed out, twisting to one side.

To start with the impact didn't feel like pain: just a sudden numbness as the bullet entered a fraction below her collarbone and exited through her back. She kicked out desperately at Claudia's legs, making the other woman stumble sideways. 

_Move or die._ The voice in her head was strident. She rolled to one side, forcing her body to follow her instructions, ignoring its protestations as she sprang to her feet. 

The gun was pointing at her again. Her foot came up, kicking at Claudia's wrist at the same instant she fired. Something tugged at Lara's hip, spinning her round as the gun went flying, bouncing end over end the ground and coming to rest, poised on the edge of the cliff.

Then the pain showed up, like a noisy drunk gatecrashing a wedding reception. Lara gasped, struggling to draw breath as one leg buckled, dropping her to her knees. The kick that would have half taken her head off instead passed fractionally over her.

Lara caught the next blow on her arms. She took several rapid steps backwards in an effort to maintain her balance. As blood spread out over one side of her body Claudia closed effortlessly in.

She managed to hold Claudia off for more than a minute, although all she could do was defend, giving ground inch by inch. The woman advanced on her remorselessly, unhurriedly choosing each blow and delivering it with implacable precision and power.

Finally Lara ran out of space to retreat into. One heel stepped out over nothing. Her arms windmilled futilely, striving to maintain balance.

Just as she was about to give into gravity one of Claudia's hands clamped around her throat, locking her in place.

Lara couldn't draw breath. Fingers like iron bars gouged into her flesh, cutting off her air supply. Claudia's face remained blankly expressionless, eyes boring into hers. She couldn't speak. Her struggles did nothing to break the woman's grip.

Her vision distorted. Claudia's face rippled and twisted, becoming something not quite human – something faded and ghostly she could almost see through. The woman's other hand came up to touch the bullet hole beneath Lara's collarbone, fingers probing none too gently at the ragged edges. Pain spiked. Lara twisted and writhed, bits of cliff-face breaking off and falling into the blood-coloured sea below.

Claudia withdrew her hand, her fingers wet with Lara's blood. She clenched that hand into a fist, drawing it back towards her body.

Lara would have shrieked if she'd been able to. 

It felt like hundreds of metal hooks had been inserted into her flesh and were being pulled simultaneously in opposing directions, slowly tearing her apart. Her external vision blacked out and suddenly she could 'see' the glowing metal thing of wings and barbs and claws that had taken up residence inside her being dragged out, inch by agonising inch. Waiting beyond, sucking Alecto into it was a hollow shell in human shape – a golem or idol built to contain the Erinyes inside it.

Part of her almost laughed. She had so wanted to be free of Alecto, and now it seemed as if her wish was about to be granted – albeit with the cost of being utterly destroyed herself.

Alecto was hissing and cackling, clawing at the thing sucking her in, gouging her spikes into Lara in an effort to hold on. The pain became more than Lara had thought it was possible to bear – the only thing in existence that mattered. She could feel herself ripping and unravelling; dwindling and diminishing.

She was acting somewhere beyond conscious thought when she reached out and grabbed hold of Claudia, then took one more deliberate step backwards right over the edge of the cliff.

Just for a moment Claudia managed to support both of them upright. Then her balance went and they tumbled together, down into the sea.

* * *

The centre of Thessaloniki was in turmoil. 

The roads here were a single unmoving logjam and the sound of car horns rose in an unending cacophony – like a chorus of the damned in hell. Just to reinforce that impression somewhere up ahead there was a huge fire burning, crackling orange flames and thick, oily black smoke rising up against the dark cobalt sky.

"Fuck!" Lomax's fist pounded the dashboard so hard that it left an inward dent in the cheap plastic. He tried to reverse, but the road behind had already become locked tight with traffic and he only ended up smashing into the front of an ancient Mercedes truck. The sound of crumpling metal and shattering glasses made it clear that their Opel got by far the worst end of that particular deal. He took a deep, rasping breath in an effort to calm himself.

Shortly after the Messenger had departed they'd witnessed a motorcade of cars and an armoured van departing Xoros's estate at speed. It had been obvious to all of them then that they were too late and Charron was already in the process of flying the coop. 

By the time they'd managed to reach Lomax's car the motorcade was already out of sight, but that hadn't stopped him attempting to follow. He'd driven at insane speeds in the direction he'd seen them heading and at one point they'd actually gotten close enough to glimpse Charron's procession in the distance, apparently heading in the direction of the harbour. Then the traffic had started to get heavy and they'd lost them again, forced to either slow down or crash. Now of course, they'd ground to halt entirely.

"Now what?" Lomax's query seemed to be directed at the universe in general rather than any of the vehicle's other four occupants.

He got his answer when the passenger side window shattered in a shower of glass and an arm reached inside, grabbing Hicks round the throat.

The battered mercenary was still struck dumb, his artificial voicebox seemingly damaged beyond use. Nevertheless his shock managed to communicate itself clearly on his patchwork face.

For a second or so everyone else stared, too surprised to act. The arm was obviously incredibly strong as Hicks was unable to break its grip with both of his. His face began to turn slowly purple and his eyes bulged.

Finally the car's other occupants managed to stir themselves. Joanna and Simon went for their guns simultaneously, filling the arm's owner with lead, the sound of gunfire deafeningly loud within the confines of the car.

The grip on Hicks's throat broke and the figure fell backwards. The arm caught on the ragged edge of glass still framing the window and there was a soggy tearing sound. It dropped free onto Hick's lap.

Everyone stared at it. There was no blood, and it looked pallid and grotesquely swollen. A wet, gaseously rotten reek emanated from it. Its blackened fingers twitched causing Hicks to jolt violently before he flung it out of the window after its former owner.

A shape loomed out of the gloom and suddenly the other window on that side of the car burst inwards. Something grabbed hold of Joanna's hair, drawing a muffled cry of pain from her lips as it started dragging her out of the car. Her gun was knocked from her grasp and dropped free into the footwell.

Emil saw a withered face, its eye sockets empty and it mouth leering where the soft tissues of one cheek had rotted away. He put three bullets into the centre of it from less than a metre away, catching the back of Joanna's dress with his free hand and hauling her back inside.

More figures were congregating around them now. Suddenly something landed on the bonnet, making the entire car shake. Another face, this one missing its entire bottom jaw, stared in at them through the windscreen.

"Fucking drive!" Emil yelled.

Lomax didn't need telling. He gunned the engine and stamped on the accelerator, yanking the steering wheel hard to the right. As the Opel lurched forward and mounted the pavement it clipped the back of the old fiat in front, smashing its rear lightcluster and knocking it forward into the back of a van. More figures were already clustering around it and breaking their way inside.

The dead man on the bonnet lost its balance, tumbling over backwards. There was a massive jolt accompanied by a sickening crunching sound as the front wheel went straight over the top of him.

Another violent jolt shuddered through the suspension as they drove over a litterbin, and then another gaggle of people loomed out of the night in front of them. It was impossible to tell whether they were living or living-dead, but Lomax ploughed on through them regardless.

Something – someone's skull – hit the windscreen hard enough to leave an opaque white star of splintered glass, dripping with blood and trailing strands of hair. There were more sickening thuds from beneath the car but no one screamed or cried out in pain.Then they were past, scattering the chairs and tables of a street-side café as they ploughed straight on through it.

"Shit." Lomax stamped down on the brakes, the car's tyres shrieking.

Up ahead a lorry had mounted the pavement and crashed through the front of a grocery store, completely blocking the way forward. They were still closing on it too fast, despite Lomax's best efforts to bring them to a halt. At the last possible instant he wrenched the steering wheel to the right and instead of colliding with the lorry head on they careered through the shattered shopfront.

Glass shattered. Metal rent. There was the sound of wood splintering as they ploughed through lines of shelves, the back end of the car sliding round in a slow-motion pirouette. Finally they lurched violently to halt, tins of soup cascading in a mini-avalanche through the broken side windows

"Nice driving Scott," Simon commented dryly. 

Surprisingly Lomax just laughed. "Yes. It was, wasn't it."

"I think we should get moving," Emil interrupted. "Unless we're wanting this to turn into a _Dawn of the Dead_ type experience."

That galvanised them. They were quickly scrambling out of the wrecked Opel, recovering their heavier weaponry from the car's boot and moving out on the double.

On foot the night seemed even more chaotic and apocalyptic than it had from the car. Vehicles clogged the road for as far as the eye could see. Some of them were still running, filled with drivers and their families who hadn't yet realised that the traffic was never going to start moving again. Others stood abandoned, a number of those looking disturbingly like they had been smashed open and the occupants dragged out. Here and there they passed multiple pile-ups of vehicles that had been travelling too fast to avoid each when the crunch came.

The strident blare of car horns and alarms going off filed the air, punctuated occasionally by what sounded like wails and screams, although it was difficult to tell for certain amid the general din.

"Two miles or so that way," Simon indicated as they reached a snarled up road junction where at least twenty vehicles had come together in a mass of twisted metal.

"Lead the way," Lomax told him.

That was definitely a scream.

Across the road from them they caught a glimpse of a woman in a white nightdress, running. As they watched she stumbled and fell hard to the pavement. The figure chasing her – a naked fat man with one side of his head staved in, and his swollen gut turned black with corruption – caught her quickly. It didn't move like a typical lurching Sam Raimi style zombie. Instead it seemed almost to float, a meat-puppet dragged along by external forces at frightening speed. Before any of them could react it reached down, grasping hold of the woman's head and wrenching it hard to the side.

All five of them shot the zombie together, the hail of bullets ripping its torso apart and spilling a gush of liquidised rot.

Before it even fell there was a brief impression of something insubstantial vacating the body and moving onto the fallen woman, who started to stir immediately. They didn't linger to see what happened next, breaking into a rapid jog in the direction they hoped the harbour lay.

Another couple of zombies emerged from a gap between two buildings in front of them, blocking their way. Long time dead, and more than half ways to being skeletons, they flew apart messily as bullets tore into them. No one said anything; they all just kept on running. When nightmarish impossibility becomes a reality that will kill you given half a chance you don't stand around questioning it.

The flames they'd seen from a distance turned out to be the result of a tanker truck overturning. A massive knot of vehicles and the surrounding buildings had become caught up in a vast, howling conflagration. Even from a distance of a hundred yards away the heat was ferocious, the air dancing and distorting in front of them. There was no choice except to take a detour around.

Plunging ahead through a tangle of narrow backstreets and residential areas presented its own set of dangers. The noise from the main thoroughfares faded somewhat, although it could still be clearly heard in the background. The sound of dogs barking – entire feral packs of – them rose to mingle with it, and the intermittent screams became more clearly audible, mixed in with sporadic gunfire.

As they ran down an alleyway a massive, slavering alsation leapt out from concealing shadows, hitting Simon head on and bowling him over onto his back. Its jaws snapped at it his throat, ropes of saliva flying.

Simon managed to interpose a meaty forearm, punching up beneath the dog's ribcage, then trying to gouge at its eyes when that had no apparent effort. Even when Lomax shot it twice in the back, blood and fur flying, it just kept on growling and worrying with its jaws like something mechanical.

A third bullet severed its spinal column, enabling Simon to finally throw it off him. It still kept on growling and snapping even though its body was completely limp. It took a fourth bullet through the skull to finish it.

The rest of the journey down to the waterfront was like walking further and further into Dante's Inferno. Flames flickered in the windows of buildings. The air was laden with smoke. At one point they passed a zombie that had had apparently collapsed in two of its own accord, its legs lying about ten feet from its still moving torso, which was being savaged by four red-eyed, rabid looking mongrels. It's arms continued to beat at its assailants even as they gulped down chunks of its half-rotten flesh.

Finally though, they reached their destination.

They were just in time to sea a huge, gleaming motorised yacht sailing serenely out of dock through the tainted, bloody-red sea. The name on its bow read _The Silver Bow_, and both Emil and Joanna knew that it belonged to Mark Xoros.

* * *

Something broke the surface of the waves just at it began to seem that the two figures that had tumbled from the cliff must be lost.

Lara gasped, sucking air into lungs that felt like they were going to explode. Her vision danced with starburst patterns of weird colour and it was several seconds before they faded, allowing her to re-orientate herself with her surroundings.

There was no sign of Claudia.

Lara's heart thudded hard. They'd still been locked together when they'd hit the water. Then . . . Then her memories went blank. She thought that she must have blacked out temporarily from the pain of the impact. Just a few seconds. Any longer and, well . . . Best not to contemplate. Awareness had returned with her on her own, murky water pressing in from all sides and her lungs aching to draw breath. She'd kicked desperately for the surface – using gravity as her only guide in the darkness, the bullet wounds twin loci of blinding pain.

She found it impossible to believe that somehow she had survived where Claudia had drowned.

A sudden swell washed over her head, plunging her beneath the surface again. 

There was a precipitously long pause before she burst back up, spluttering and gasping, fighting the urge to panic. Her sodden dress was pulling her down, tangling limbs that already felt as if they were weighted with iron chains. Every movement drove another red-hot spike through one side of her body.

One of her shoes had been lost in the fall and now she kicked the other one off. It didn't seem to make much difference. Slowly and painfully she started to stroke towards the rocks.

It took several abortive attempts to pull herself out of the water, the combination of the swell and a near complete inability to grip with one hand badly hampering her efforts. Eventually she emerged, like a particularly difficult birth, every inch of her plastered bright red.

Lara half-collapsed, able to do no more for the cling on. She was wheezing like an old woman and she just couldn't catch her breath. The pain, which she'd hoped might fade with a brief chance to rest, remained a howling monster, clawing at her angrily. A wave washed over her, almost pulling her back into the sea's.

She wanted to scream. Instead she gritted her teeth and tried to force herself to climb.

About six feet up she could no longer grip. With a groan of frustration, she slid back down to her starting point. Another wave tugged at her insistently.

Her vision weirded out again, and for a time the only thing she could hear was a dull roaring in her ears. She had to fight tooth and nail to maintain a grip on consciousness.

_I can help you Lara. If you let me in_. The voice was clearer than it had ever been, and sounded almost human.

_I'll bet_, Lara replied. _Now shut up and fuck off._ She tried and failed to get herself moving again.

There was a metallic sound in her head. It might have been laughter.

_Get out!_

_You're dying Lara. You can feel it, can't you?_

Not listening. Lara tried to focus, gathering what remained of her strength for another attempt on the cliff. The world continued to swim stubbornly before her eyes and there didn't seem to be any strength left to gather.

_You won't be able to make it to the top Lara. You'll lose consciousness trying, then the sea will take you._

And I'm sure you'll have a whale of a time watching. Stubbornly Lara started forward again, her whole body shaking with the effort. _At least I'll be entertaining._

There was a frustrated hiss. _The Magician wins! She will come, and everything will be lost!_

Lara was surprised to hear herself laughing and forced herself another few inches upwards. _Amazing hubris isn't it? Thinking your own actions affect the fate of the world. Someone else will stop him, I'm sure. And if they don't . . . Well, like you say, I'll be dead, and I doubt I'll very much care._

Suddenly she screamed as metal barbs tried to force their way into her mind. _Get out!_ For this she did find some strength.

Eventually the violating probes stopped, apparently unable to find a purchase. _You really would damn the world for your own petty needs? You are very similar to him._

Lara tried to climb another fraction further but found she couldn't. Her arms were trembling so badly she couldn't move them. Indeed, soon it was going to be beyond her ability to simply cling on. _Not bloody fair_. Part of her wanted to sob.

_You would give up your life, yet you are not willing to let me in? A much lesser price_. The voice in her head persisted.

_Go jump off a fucking cliff!_. Lara could feel herself starting to slip again.

_The few people who do survive will curse your name for all eternity if they knew what you do now._

Big deal. She slipped back a few inches then managed to catch herself again. It wouldn't last, she knew. Next slip would be all the way and she would be back where she started, only with the tide a little further in. _At least I'll be famous. And I think you've got all this completely backwards you decrepit bitch!_

Another furious hiss that was really only inside her head. 

Lara didn't care. In fact she felt a raging anger building. _You, you skanky buzzard, could help me. You've said as much already. Yet you refuse, because I won't allow you to steal my body and rape my mind. You're willing to – in you own fucking words 'damn the world' – out of hurt pride and pique, which is far worse than what you accuse me of._

Suddenly the voice – and all sense of its owner – were gone. The abrupt feeling of lightness and relief was so disorientating that she lost her grip and fell the remaining few feet back to the base of the cliff.

There was a low chuckle.

_Come back to gloat?_ A wave pulled at her. It felt like too much effort to cling on, although for the moment her body did so.

_No. _

It was as if someone had stuck a red-hot poker into the bullet wound beneath her collarbone. A fraction of a second later similar pain ignited in her hip. Unable to stop herself, Lara cried out.

The pain began to diminish. Lara found herself suddenly able to catch her breath again and her vision had cleared. Something approaching co-ordination returned to her limbs and both hands and arms worked properly. She still ached, and there was still a bone-deep weariness, but it was no worse than before she'd been shot. The next wave to crash into her was much easier to resist.

_There. I have given you what I can._

Lara grunted acknowledgement, then started up the cliff again. It no longer seemed such an impossibility. In fact it was relatively easy all things considered. She'd regularly climbed much worse than this for fun in the past.

_What about Claudia?_ Lara could sense the roiling anger, even as she asked the question.

_The qlippoth?_ Lara wondered if you could call that slight hesitancy wariness, or even fear. _I pushed it away from us. I doubt it is gone though. It is well protected._

_Very good._ Lara forced herself to redouble her pace. _Now be a dear and sod off. I don't work well with someone looking over my shoulder the whole time._

_If you show even a sign of faltering, Lara . . ._

The voice faded, and much to her surprise Lara felt the presence hovering over her fade almost to nothing. A shudder of relief travelled down the length of her back.

At that moment, a few hundred yards further down the coast, a blood slick hand appeared over the top of the cliff. Calm and focused, Claudia Dumane pulled herself effortlessly up.

* * *

The speedboat skipped across the tainted waves, pacing itself to keep the lights of the_ Silver Bow _a steady distance in front of it.

Simon sat at the controls, his expression fixed as he guided the stolen vessel smoothly on its way. Lomax stood at his shoulder, binoculars raised to his eyes, concentration firmly on Xoros's yacht.

"What happened to the bloody dawn?" Emil grumbled to himself, as the sultry wind whipped at his clothing. Somewhere in the distance there was an ominous rumble of thunder.

"End of the world as we know it. What else did you expect?"

He glanced across at Joanna sourly. His question had been rhetorical and he hadn't really intended her to hear. "I'm glad at least one of is an optimist."

"Well you know me."

"No. Actually I don't."

He couldn't tell whether the flicker that passed across her face was an indication of amusement or reproachment, or something else entirely. "Hasn't exactly been the right circumstances, has it?"

"Going to be over soon. One way or another." He looked her in the eye.

"Is that some kind of oblique way of saying don't do anything stupid?"

"If you like." He shrugged, staring at the distant spot of light they were following. "It's just . . . well you don't have to go in knowing you're going to give your life heroically for the cause. I've been there before, and what looks like heroism from the inside is usually nothing more than self-indulgent shit."

There was a half-smile on her lips, and this time he was fairly sure it was amusement. "This isn't about revenge, Emil."

"No? Well, to be honest you've never said. It is something more than 'just doing the job' though, isn't it?"

"It's about setting something right. A responsibility," was all she finally said. Her voice was all but drowned out under the sound of wind and waves.

_And that's different from revenge how, precisely?_

He didn't say it aloud, but something must have shown in his expression anyway. "Look, if it gives you any peace of mind, I won't be single-handedly charging down machine gun nests or anything like that. I do want to live, if I'm able." After a moment's pause she nodded towards Lomax's back. "Anyway, if I were you I'd be more concerned about certain others of us here."

Emil grimaced, not needing the reminder. "I'll save my worries for things I might conceivably have some kind of influence over."

Just then the speedboat bounced violently, throwing him hard to one side where he only just managed to catch himself before going overboard. Joanna landed on top of him, knocking the breath from his body.

"Simon, what the fuck is going on?" Lomax was in the process of picking himself up.

"Working on it," came the terse response.

The boat swung hard to starboard, throwing Emil down again as tried to regain his feet. A patch of water about twenty feet square suddenly erupted immediately to the port of their position, launching an immense pillar of frothing, blood tinged seawater more than a hundred feet into the air.

"Jesus Christ!" Lomax glanced quickly at Hicks. "No offence."

There was of course, no answer.

This time Emil decided to stay where he was as Simon guided the boat through a frantic series of evasive manoeuvres.

More waterspouts were erupting all around them now, buffeting the boat violently and showering them with tainted, bloody liquid. A direct hit would have smashed the boat to kindling, but Simon was either very good or very lucky (or both) and managed to keep them afloat.

"Depth charges?" Lomax queried.

Simon didn't respond, too busy steering. The closest waterspout yet lifted them several feet in the air, almost capsizing them as they splashed back down again.

"Elementals," Joanna supplied, managing to sound unconcerned.

For several all too long seconds the speedboat wallowed, its propeller churning the water to white froth but failing to impart any forward momentum. Then, abruptly, it managed to bite, and they leapt forward as if they'd been stung on the arse by a wasp. The waterspout erupting behind them imparted further momentum, missing by no more than fractions.

"So that bastard knows we're coming then?" Lomax, Emil noted, had lost his binoculars somewhere in the buffeting they'd taken – most likely overboard.

"Not necessarily." Joanna again. "They could just be a precaution set to guard his back."

"Believe that do you?"

She shrugged.

Conversation became impossible as Simon navigated them through three more increasingly near misses. The violent changes of direction left Emil clinging on for dear life, the contents of his stomach seeking to find the quickest available exit.

Their luck held for over fifteen minutes, through more and more violent and numerous assaults. Then, ahead of them, they realised that _The Silver Bow_ was slowing and turning in towards land. There, at the foot of a headland, several lights could be seen, piercing the gloom. This, apparently, was Charron's destination.

For the first time Emil allowed himself a flicker of hope. Just a few minutes more, he told himself as the next waterspout missed by some distance. Just a few minutes more . . .

If fate was listening she was in a particularly capricious mood. 

Almost in touching distance of their destination Simon was thrown forward, hard against the boat's controls by a particularly violent swell. He flopped forward, dazed, his face bloodied, on the verge of unconsciousness.

He didn't recover quite quickly enough. The next waterspout erupted directly beneath the boat, just as Simon started to steer away from it. Fibreglass twisted and buckled, ripping apart under the forces being exerted on it. The boat tore in half as it, and its occupants, were thrown high up into the air.

* * *

The Messenger tilted its androgynously beautiful head fractionally to one side. It appeared to be listening to something. 

There was plenty to listen to – crackling flames; the cacophonous howling of a pack of dogs running wild; intermittently, a scream. The impression it gave though, was that it was listening to something else. Something that was much further away, and beyond the range of human hearing.

After a few seconds it straightened, letting out a sweet musical trilling noise slightly reminiscent of a nightingale. Abruptly, it flexed its wings powerfully and was gone, away into the dark shrouded sky.

For a time – perhaps as long as minutes – there was stillness in its wake, as if everything in the immediate area was waiting nervously for the Messenger to reappear. Then, finally, a piece of the huge heap of rubble it had been standing on shifted, bouncing down onto the road. A few seconds passed and another bit of rubble shifted and fell loose, then another, and another.

Eventually a hand – white with dust save for its flayed and bloody knuckles – burst free, clutching at the air. More rubble fell away in a mini-avalanche and a head followed the hand into a view, gasping and coughing.

Slowly, painfully, inch by merciless inch, Dimitriou Pappas pulled himself free of the shattered wreckage of his home.

He could scarcely breathe. The pain in his chest – in his legs, arms and head – was immense, and it wouldn't fade no matter what he tried. So he pushed himself forward – it was as good a direction as any other.

The remnant of power inside him was the only comfort he had left, and he clutched it tightly – a dying miser trying to hang onto his wealth. Even so, he could feel it bleeding away with each passing moment. It was all that had kept him alive in the face of the Messenger's wrath, but he got the sense it wouldn't save him for much longer now.

A ragged scream was wrenched from him as he forced himself to make that one more effort, popping all the way free of the rubble. His clothing was in tatters, every inch of him smothered in grey-white dust. His legs looked misshapen, bones shattered in compound fractures, his torn trousers streaked with blood.

For a long time he just lay there, breath coming in ragged, intermittent sobs. At least now he would die in the open air, not buried like a rat in a hole . . .

Something gleamed in the corner of his vision, catching his attention. It took several seconds to make his eyes focus, and all the while an inner voice was telling him it wasn't worth bothering with; that nothing was going to be worth bothering very soon now. He managed to ignore it.

Hmm, it was a . . . a . . . Well he wasn't quite sure to be honest. Still, it was quite close. He stretched out, groaning at the fiery knives of pain that re-ignited in his ribcage. No, couldn't reach it. His fingertips were about a foot short.

_See. Told you. Now give up on this nonsense . . ._

Another scream rent the air as he forced his tortured form forwards again. For a time his vision faded to red and he thought he would die now, the effort too much for him. But gradually the pain subsided to merely agonising and his vision returned. He reached for the object again, and this time he managed to grasp hold of it.

It was a feather, he saw. 

It was hard and smooth to the touch, as if it was made of metal, or perhaps stone. And it was cold. Like a block of ice in fact, slowly turning the hand that held it numb. Something about it made him profoundly uneasy, as if he was touching something . . . alien.

A feather of the Messenger. 

Slowly his lips formed a savage, bloodstained grin.

* * *

Lara jogged ceaselessly through the darkness, following the road.

There was no traffic, either leaving Thessaloniki or approaching. She would have expected all roads leaving Thessaloniki to be jam-packed with vehicles as people panicked and tried to flee, but there was nothing. Somehow that that one detail – even more than dark skies in the middle of the day, or a sea that had turned red and tainted – rammed home the fact that something truly apocalyptic was happening. 

In the distance she could feel her destination – a looming mountain presence. 

It was still several miles away, but now each step made it feel perceptibly closer. The senses that felt it weren't her own, she knew, instead belonging to her guest. Curiously that fact bothered her significantly less now than it would have done just a few hours earlier.

Occasionally she got the sense of something moving in the gloom beside the road – shadows shifting; the sound of twigs snapping in the parched undergrowth – but she never paused, and never tried to ascertain the cause. She knew that whatever it was, it wasn't Claudia, and for the moment that was all that mattered to her.

Claudia was somewhere behind her, matching her pace, neither losing nor gaining ground. The same senses that enabled her to feel her destination, pulling her forward, gave a vague half-impression of the woman following her.

_Qlippoth_.

The word Alecto had used was a strange one. It was Hebrew in origin, which on its own was interesting enough considering the speaker. The most well known meaning of it was as a term to for _fallen angel_, although Lara was certain this not what Alecto meant. _Shell_ was the original, literal meaning, at least as closely as you could translate it into English. It held connotations of emptiness and loss – of being hollowed out and diminished.

What it meant when used to describe a human she wasn't quite sure. A prison designed by Charron to hold the Erinyes perhaps. Alecto's fear had been plain enough, as had been the pain.

After a time she arrived at a village and slowed to a walk.

The quiet was uneasy and there was no sign of any living people. The windows of the houses were dark and empty, not a single light showing. She tried to tell herself that it was just an electricity blackout – that there were people still inside the dwellings – but she couldn't make herself believe it. It felt like something terrible had happened – that the place around her was dead in every sense, fit only for ghosts.

Somewhere a dog barked. After the initial jolt, it almost came as a relief – evidence of something else alive.

A few seconds later a second bark answered, then a third and forth. The first bark changed to howling, and the others quickly joined in, baying like wolves. The feeling of relief went cold and died. 

Lara slowed even further, looking long into the dark spaces between buildings, expecting something to leap out with every passing moment. Sweat was forming on the palms of her hands and her grip on Claudia's pistol felt decidedly uneasy. Her finger kept creeping nervously to the trigger.

_She's coming. She's gaining. _

_Shut up_, Lara told the voice in her head.

_Faster._

_And get eaten by the wolves while trying to run away from the lion?_

Suddenly the howling stopped. Lara could feel her skin crawling, the air around her charged with static electricity. She was walking past a small Orthodox Church now, set slightly back from the road and half hidden behind a stand of trees.

She saw something move in the churchyard – a flicker of light, darting away from her at speed. There was a sound somewhere behind her. It resembled a child's half-stifled giggles, but when she turned to face it there was nothing there. A suggestion of rapidly running footsteps echoed away into the distance, but again there was nothing to see that could be making that sound.

A low, resonant growl sounded almost on top her. Blunt claws scraped on the pavement.

Lara twisted and fired in a single motion. 

Something dark and fur-covered struck her in the chest, bowling her over onto her back. She heaved at it desperately to throw it off her, trying to keep its jaws from her throat.

Only belatedly did she realise that the bullet had taken half its head away, and that what she'd shot was actually a scrawny, under-nourished looking mongrel with a hint of Labrador about it. Shaking, she pulled herself to her feet. 

Another growl drew her gaze.

A Doberman, large and vicious looking, it muzzle stained red. Salvia dripped and foamed from its jaws and its eyes were demonic. There were more, smaller dogs arrayed behind it – four or five of them – but it was this one that held her attention.

It moved. Lara pulled the trigger.

It was a hasty shot, glancing off the side of its skull and scoring a bloody gouge down its flank. The dog made a sounded weirdly like a revving car engine before launching itself straight at her.

She ducked. The Doberman flew over her shoulder, its back legs catching her as it went and knocking her off balance.

Both of them scrambled to recover. Lara proved marginally the quicker. 

She shot it again as it was still turning back on her, snarling viciously. The bullet struck it in the pelvis, shattering bone, and its back end dropping to the pavement, legs flopping.

Still it tried to lunge at her, jaws snapping, foam flying. A third bullet blew a hole right the way through its chest before it reached her, putting it all the way down.

Something ripped into her calf muscle, drawing blood. She stamped backward, grimacing in a mixture of pain and disgust as she felt the small dog's skull crunching beneath her foot. There was movement in the corner of her vision, and she turned, firing – half a dozen bullets; blood and fur flying.

When she stopped shooting she could hear her own breathing, harsh in her ears. The air stank of blood and cordite. There was one dog left – a small mongrel – and it growled at her, backing off slowly before turning and fleeing. She let it go, her shoulders wracked by shudders. "Fuck. Fuck. Fucking fuck!"

"You killed my doggy." The voice was high and singsong – childish. With a profound sinking feeling, Lara turned to face it.

She stood in the gateway to the churchyard, half-hidden in shadows – a little girl, who didn't look any older than four or five, wearing a dress that looked like it was her Sunday best. 

Lara stared at her. Her brain didn't seem to be working properly. "Hmm, I don't think it's safe for you to be out here now. Where do you live? I'll take you home." She took a step towards the girl, who backed off, deeper into the shadows. 

"You killed my doggy," the girl repeated, this time sounding on the verge of tears.

"Hush now." Lara tried to sound reassuring, but children really were an alien species to her and the situation felt entirely unreal. She was acutely aware that she was drenched from head to toe in gore, standing in the middle of a pile of bullet-riddled dog carcasses. It was not likely to be a reassuring sight. "That wasn't your dog, no matter what it looked like. Those were . . . evil dogs." She swallowed heavily, realising how utterly ridiculous that sounded. "You really should let me take you home you know. There might be more evil dogs around. It's not safe."

"Don't want to go home. I want to play."

Lara felt a surge of exasperation and took another few steps towards the girl. She really didn't have time for this . . . She froze abruptly. Something was very wrong here, she finally realised, her mind catching up on the discrepancies. Why was the little girl was speaking fluent English-accented English? "Wait . . ."

"I want to play with your entrails." The voice was no longer that of a child. Instead it was deep and rasping – like it was gargling on broken glass.

The child-figure flew at her, floating fractionally above the ground. The shadows fell away, and for a brief few seconds Lara could clearly see the desiccated, worm-ridden horror of the girl's face. Then small, ragged yellow teeth fastened onto her wrist and searing pain jolted her out of her inertia.

The gun slipped from Lara's grasp. She tried to pull back and break the dead girl's grip, but she was like a weasel tearing into a rabbit – gnawing and ripping with fingers that rotted halfway down to the bone. Her strength was hellish.

Hitting the girl in the head again and again had no effect. The pain had become excruciating, Lara able to feel her own flesh tearing, small teeth gnawing at her.

In desperation she picked the girl up bodily, slamming her startlingly light frame down across the top of the churchyard wall, snapping her spine. Still the girl clung on relentlessly.

Lara lifted her again, slamming her down once more. Then a third time, then a fourth, straight onto the back of her skull. It crunched like a soft-boiled egg in its shell. 

She dug her fingers into the rotting flesh of the girl's jaw, snapping tendons and tearing muscle tissue apart. Only when she finally managed to rip the girl's lower jaw away entirely did she break free though, flinging the animated corpse as far away as she could.

She watched in numb horror as the girl continued to twitch and thrash where she'd fallen, like a landed fish. But she didn't rise again.

Cradling her torn arm, Lara moved numbly to recover the fallen pistol. There was a small sound behind her – a shoe scuffing quietly on the pavement – and the muscles in her back clenched tight.

_She's here!_ The voice in her head warned, too late.

Resignedly Lara turned around to face Claudia.

* * *

Emil dragged himself slowly and painfully onto the rocks, drenched from head to foot in bloody seawater. Violent coughing wracked his body

What had happened was still a blur. There were vague, semiconscious remembrances of violently churning water, pressing in from all sides, roaring in his ears and buffeting his body while his lungs burned for breath. There had been shapes swimming around him – weirdly insubstantial nightmare forms that appeared to made out of the water itself – but they had seemed more intent on tearing the remnants of the boat to shreds. Then, without realising how, he had been free of the maelstrom, breaking through the surface, gasping for air.

It had only been a thirty or forty yard swim to the shore, but the perpetual battle against tide and swell made it seem five times further, and his body felt like it had been beaten by sledge hammers.

Now he looked back, trying to see what was left.

There was no trace of the speedboat. Not so much as a single visible fragment. The water still frothed and boiled where it had been, but that was the only remaining evidence that it had ever existed. For a horribly long moment Emil thought that the others had all gone and he was the only one who had survived. Then, about twenty yards downwind from his position, he spotted a head, bobbing above the waves.

Hicks, he determined. A few seconds later, slightly further out he spotted a second person, swimming slowly against the swell. Joanna. Try as he might he couldn't see the other two though.

"Over here!" he yelled, waving his arms and trying to attract their attention. "Over here!"

At first he thought they hadn't heard, his voice lost over the wind and waves. Then Hicks's head swivelled his way, and the mercenary started to swim laboriously towards him. Joanna appeared to have gotten the message too, changing direction to follow him.

It seemed to take an age.

When they were almost within reach, Emil saw something that made his heart freeze. A white line – like the wake produced by a fast moving Jet Ski – broke off from the churning mass where the speedboat had gone down. It homed in on the two swimmers rapidly – a shark with the scent of blood. Neither of them appeared to have the slightest idea of its approach.

"Behind you!" Emil drew his handgun and started to shoot at the head of the onrushing line of water. As a gesture it was somewhat less effective than King Canute commanding the tides to turn back, but it did at least alert the other two to the threat.

It was going to get Joanna before she reached safety. 

Emil watched it in numb horror.

Then Hicks turned back. Just as the water elemental was about to hit Joanna, he grabbed hold of her, shoving her down beneath the surface. 

The frothing arrow of water struck him head on, lifting him out of the sea and sending him spinning, head over heels through the air. As he crashed back into the waves the elemental was already on top of him, batting him up and further out to sea. It reminded Emil sickly of a wildlife documentary – killer whales and baby seals. The only thing it was lacking was David Attenborough's soothing tones to gently anaesthetise the horror.

Joanna had surfaced again, directly in front of him. He tore his gaze away from the macabre spectacle to help pull her up beside him. She collapsed onto her hands and knees, noisily coughing up water.

Another glance out to sea showed that Hicks had been carried out almost a hundred yards now. As Emil watched he was thrown high out of the water once more, crashing back down limply with a tremendous splash. This time he was sucked under and didn't come up again.

He felt a hand touch his arm. "We should go. There's nothing we can do."

Emil eventually nodded. From the look of it the elemental had become bored now that Hicks had ceased struggling, leaving him to his watery grave and turning back towards land. It was heading directly towards their position at speed.

A quick glance was enough to show that up the cliffs was definitely out – high, overhanging and downright precipitous, with no obvious route up.

"Down there." The spot Joanna indicated was a cave at the base of the cliffs. Getting there involved a treacherous looking scramble over sharp, spray-lashed rocks.

They were only just over halfway when the elemental hit. It reared up out of the waves; a towering column of blood choked seawater – resembling nothing so much as a giant arm. A fraction of a second later it came crashing down.

In the lead, Joanna was several feet ahead of the rushing water, merely getting soaked by the backsplash from it. Emil though, was just caught by its breaking edge as he tried to leap clear, knocked off balance, and falling – the breath blasted from his body – between two lots of jagged rocks.

The sodden leg of his trousers was sliced open, the calf muscle beneath deeply gashed. He clung on desperately to the rocks, holding his breath as the elemental's substance followed all around him, trying to pluck him free.

Then, temporarily at least, the water was gone and he was still clinging on. His hands were torn and bleeding from the strain of holding on. Groaning, he struggled to pull himself up. He was intensely aware of the seawater bubbling furiously as the elemental reformed for another strike.

Above him, Joanna caught his right hand and helped pull him up. Even now the elemental was rising up out of the sea again. 

Not pausing, they broke into a sprint, trusting to chance that they wouldn't slip on the wet rock and shatter a limb. The column of water came crashing down again . . . 

They both made it into the cave fractionally ahead of it.

* * *

There was a soft scraping sound, so quiet that it wouldn't have been audible but for a brief lull in the wind right at that moment. The guard frowned, turning towards its source, his submachine-gun swinging up into a ready position . . .

And Simon delivered a short, powerful chopping blow to the man's jaw, dropping him cold just as his eyes started to widen. He caught the guard as his legs buckled, lowering the unconscious figure quietly to the deck. 

Quickly he relieved the man of his MP5, side arm, and the spare clips he was carrying. After a quick scan of his surroundings, he dragged the unconscious body to the nearest available lot of cover – a pile of bloodstreaked tarpaulins. It wouldn't hold up to a close inspection, but it was the best that was available. Dropping him overboard would create too loud a smash.

There was the sound of footsteps, coming up from below deck. Simon was instantly alert, edging silently forward. He could hear the approaching guard whistling softly to himself. Then the back of his head and neck came into view.

A short while later a second unconscious form joined the first beneath the tarpaulins and Simon had acquired another MP5. 

After waiting a few seconds to assure himself the coast was clear he returned to where he left Lomax, clinging to the side if the _Silver Bow_. He helped his boss up.

Lomax looked to be in a pretty bad way. Being drenched from head to foot in gore didn't help the impression, but not all of it was from the sea. His forehead was gashed open, the flesh around it badly swollen, still oozing slowly. The wound in his hand had broken open too, bleeding copiously despite his attempts to bind it. Immediately he dropped down onto his haunches, his breath coming too quickly for the amount of effort he had expended. "So?"

"Our one-legged friend and a sizeable entourage have disembarked." Simon gestured towards the cluster of lights on shore, his voice barely audible. "There's just a skeleton crew onboard, plus four armed guards. I've taken out two." He unslung one of the MP5's from his shoulder, handing it to Lomax. "You manage this?"

He bared his teeth, accepting the weapon. "Don't ask silly questions." Nevertheless, it appeared to require a considerable effort on his part to force himself back to his feet.

Securing the boat took ten more minutes and left them with a total of eight unconscious individuals. They were bound and gagged by Simon, then locked in a cabin that seemed specifically designed to serve as a detention cell. Definitely not something that was standard to this sort of vessel.

"Paydirt." Lomax's voice reached Simon from somewhere further astern, echoing weirdly in the tight confines. "Come and have a look at this."

The cell he'd found was an armoury. From the look of it, it had already been stripped of more than half of its contents, but what was left was still interesting enough. More MP5's complete with night-sights and suppressers; a clutch of M16's assault rifles fitted with under-barrel grenade launchers; sundry sidearms; kevlar body armour. Then there were the packing crates; grenades; slabs of C4 explosive; enough assorted ammunition to sustain a small war.

"It's going to be fun, shafting the fucker with his own weapon stash." Lomax had a grin on his face that crossed the boundary into demented. He was pulling on one of the vests, tooling himself up with spare ammunition and grenades.

Simon stood back by the door, failing to look enthused. "You do realise this means his goon squad are going to be tooled up with all this stuff?" Simon tried to hold Lomax's eye.

"Yeah, but we know how to use it." There was something manic about the mercenary leader – a reckless sense of disregard Simon had not seen in him before.

"There are only the two of us," he said quietly. He tried to hope that the others had somehow survived the speedboat wreck too, but he couldn't convince himself. "And we've seen what good bullets do."

"Oh, stop being so fucking British about it, Simon. Show a bit of optimism." Suddenly the manic went flat, Lomax's eyes turning hard and dead. "Seriously old friend, you have any better ideas? I'd damn well like to hear them. You're right. The fucker's going to get us. Already got most of us without breaking a sweat. Least we can do is show a bit of fight. Extract a fair price."

Simon let out a long breath. "Okay Scott. But we do it properly, right?"

"Always do Simon. Always do."

He grunted. "So, first off we're going to get your wounds treated. Then we're going to rest a while and get some strength back, and while we do that we're going to try to come up with something vaguely resembling a plan."

"Simon . . ."

"No buts here Scott. The alternative goes like this. I punch your lights out and throw you in the cell with the others. Don't think I'm kidding, and don't think you can stop me – in your current condition I don't think I'll have much trouble doing it. Then I'll see if I can manage to get this heap started on my own, and try to dismiss the sky as a freak meteorological event and the sea as something weird to do with pollution and algae. With a bit of luck Charron might have some half-decent music on board, and perhaps even some beer – although granted it'll probably just be some weak American shit."

For a while Lomax remained silent, and they just stared at each other.

"Nothing to say Scott?"

"Never insult another man's beer. That's fighting talk that is." He shook his head and let out a resigned laugh, sitting back hard on one of the ammo filled packing crates. "Okay Simon, for whatever the hell it's worth, you have yourself a deal."

* * *

Lara tried to work out how many bullets she had left. If wasn't easy – she didn't know how many bullets a Ruger P93's clip held. Somewhere between one and five was her best guess, and hopefully at least three. She held it pointed at the centre of Claudia's face, although for some reason it felt like she was the one looking down a gun-barrel.

_It won't work. She is protected and imbued._ The inner voice was a scraping whisper.

_Shut up and fuck off unless you've got something constructive to add,_ she told it.

Devoid of expression, ignoring the gun, Claudia stepped forward. Lara pulled the trigger.

There was a dazzlingly bright muzzle flash; a ringingly loud retort. The bullet hit, exactly where it was aimed at, and there was a second ear-splitting _crack!_ Lara had a brief impression of white-hot sparks flying and a hot, angry smell that was more than just cordite. Then Claudia was flat out on her back.

Lara stared, her heart thudding. There was a bloody furrow across a previously immaculate cheekbone, but she could see that the bullet hadn't penetrated, instead deflecting sideways. As she watched Claudia sat bolt upright – Frankenstein's monster after the lightning bolt.

She shot her again, this time in the middle of the chest.

There was another ringing crack as the bullet struck, sparks flying. Lara had a vague impression of something flying back past her, missing by inches. Claudia started to rise again.

Third bullet didn't prove to be the charm either. Fourth attempt and the firing pin came down on an empty chamber. Lara swore.

_Told you._

Lara kicked Claudia hard in the face, leaping over her as she fell back and making a run for it. The air crackled around her as she sprinted through the churchyard, pale fingers of witchlight flickering across the grass and the headstones. A sound, like a thousand barely audible voices, whispered on the very edge of her hearing, and there was a vague sensation that the earth was vibrating beneath her feet.

As she dodged round another grave something caught hold of her ankle. Lara sprawled flat on her face, the breath going from her body as she hit the ground hard. Gasping, she tried to pull free and regain her feet, but it held her fast.

A downward glance showed a hand, erupted from the earth with half the flesh rotted away. Her breath shrilling between her teeth, she kicked out at it hard. Bone's snapped. Again she tried to yank free. Cold, bony fingers gouged into her ankle. She kicked again, and again, and finally the hand broke apart.

Claudia was looming over her again.

"I don't suppose I could persuade you to be reasonable about this?"

The kick aimed at her midriff suggested that the answer was no.

It turned into a replay of the fight on the clifftop. Although bullet wounds no longer hampered Lara, it soon became apparent that any blows she did manage to inflict were no more than superficial gnat bites. Worse, they left openings in her guard that Claudia took quick and brutal advantage of. It wasn't long before she was completely on the back foot, retreating constantly and simply trying to keep herself from being overwhelmed.

She jumped back, putting a gravestone between the two of them and trying to catch her breath. Blood was streaming from her nose and pain spiked from the side of her ribcage where a powerful kick had landed. She wasn't sure whether it was merely badly bruised or bone had been cracked.

_So how do I stop her then?_

There was no answer from her unwanted guest. Off to her right a patch of ground was churning. Something erupted from beneath the earth. She didn't get a good look, Claudia leaping straight at her and forcing her to roll to one side in an effort to evade. She could make a pretty good guess though.

_Am I to take it that the all-powerful you doesn't know then?_

There was a brief sense of metallic spines and barbs, furiously bristling. Lara assumed she'd hit the nail on the head there, and Alecto didn't apparently enjoy her own ignorance. 

A blow glanced off her forehead as she was a fraction slow to duck, making her stagger and briefly doubling her vision. She kicked out at Claudia's legs, catching her and throwing her temporarily off balance, gaining a brief instant to retreat and regain her equilibrium.

Two more patches of earth were visibly churning now, restless dead forcing their way to the surface. It was getting increasingly difficult for Lara to catch her breath now, and she felt a growing sense of desperation. She was losing – badly.

_Can't be bloody invincible, you bitch._ She held off another flurry of blows. The church building was right behind her now and she was running out of space to retreat into.

Claudia tried to press the advantage, for once slightly overeager rather than perfectly cold and remorseless. Lara managed to side step, twist, and throw the other woman over her hip, then dance back out of reach as she immediately sprang up again.

Not for the first time she noticed the patch of blood smeared on Claudia's forehead. This time though, she'd gotten a slightly better look at it. And it wasn't just some randomly acquired stain. It was a definite design.

She feinted a lunge, and as Claudia instinctively moved to counter, broke off, sprinting for the church door.

It was locked. A curse hissed between Lara's teeth.

The wood was ancient, riddled with dry rot. As Lara threw a shoulder against it, it cracked and splintered. A second shoulder charge and the door flew open with a resounding crash. Claudia caught her by the back of her neck.

Lara screamed.

It was involuntary, the pain absolutely excruciating as once more Claudia began to try and draw Alecto out through Lara's flesh. Blinded, unable to breath, she swung an elbow hard back into Claudia's face, snapping the woman's head back violently and yanking free of her grip.

Panting, her eyes watering, she stumbled into the church's gloomy interior. Claudia stalked after her.

"Doesn't all that's happening here worry you?" Lara tried using the sound of her voice as a distraction as she retreated further into the church. Claudia was a blank silhouette against the dim rectangle of light from the door.

"I mean, the sky being as black as midnight in the middle of the day. The sea turning to blood. For Christsake, the dead rising from their graves. It doesn't make you think just the slightest bit?"

Lara felt something hard against her back. The font. She'd reached what she was looking for. Holy water. Cupping her hands she dipped them in.

The holiness was neither here nor there. It was more the fact that it was water she was interested in.

As Claudia closed in, Lara experienced a pang of doubt – she'd been totally immersed in the sea and that hadn't done anything; the mark had persisted. She shook her head. If it didn't work she was dead. If she didn't try she was dead. Not worth standing around and debating.

She threw a handful of the holy water into Claudia's face.

Nothing, of course happened, but that hadn't been the plan anyway. Instead, Lara took the opportunity the distraction provided to nip swiftly round behind Claudia's back, wrapping one arm tightly around the woman's throat and wiping the flat of her wet hand hard across her forehead and the mark there.

The result was instantaneous. Lara didn't know too much about it though; just a deafening roaring in her ears, and a sense of air rushing rapidly past her . . .

She came to lying in the aisle between the church pews. It felt like giant fists had pummelled her senseless, and she had absolutely no sense of how long she'd been out for. Groaning, she pulled herself back to her feet.

Claudia was in the process of doing likewise, disentangling herself from a splintered pew that had been shattered when she'd landed on it. They stood facing each other; calm before a storm.

"Call it a draw do you think?" Lara's voice sounded weak and exhausted.

"Sorry. I can't do that."

Lara started violently in surprise at the response, her jaw clicking shut on what she'd been about to say. Claudia rushed her.

There was a brief rush of elation as Lara heard the other woman's breath hiss from her lungs when she caught her with a hard blow to the stomach. It quickly passed. Stripped of Charron's protections she might now be, but the fact remained that Claudia was bigger, heavier and stronger than Lara, and at least matched her for skill, speed and agility.

_All other things being equal a good biggun' will always beat a good littlun'._

Lara cursed whoever had said that for being right, and resumed her previous tactics of trying to retreat and keep out of Claudia's reach. Blood dripped from the corner of her mouth and her bottom lip was swelling up rapidly.

She backed up as far as the church doorway without getting cornered. There was a wrought iron candleholder as tall as she was, which she grabbed hold of, brandishing it like a spear in an effort to keep Claudia back.

Claudia tried to advance on her. Lara caught her a bone-cracking blow across the forearm, which forced her back again, grimacing in pain.

Lara backed through the doorway slowly, catching Claudia again across her hip. Before she could press the sudden advantage, she caught a glimpse of something moving in the corner of her vision, moving rapidly towards her.

A corpse, bloated with rot, its flesh the texture of pallid mushrooms. It moved as if being dragged along by an invisible – and not very skilful – puppeteer.

Spinning, she impaled it through the stomach with the candleholder. As the corpse fell back, twitching, the candleholder still embedded in it, Claudia came round Lara's blindside, hitting her hard across the back of her neck.

Lara rolled as she hit the ground, vision blurring. She lashed out desperately at Claudia's legs, catching the other woman and bringing her crashing down on top of her. There she grabbed hold of Claudia tightly, striving to prevent her from gaining leverage, and drove her forehead into her face.

Locked tightly together, they rolled over and over on the grass. 

Suddenly the ground opened up beneath them, and they were falling. It was only about five feet, but caught unawares it felt much further. The impact of landing was bone jarring despite the fact she was on top of Claudia when they hit.

They'd fallen into a grave. The rotten wood of the coffin, already splintered by its former occupant's efforts at forcing its way out, smashed apart at the impact. A ragged, stake-like length of it ripped through Claudia's shoulder, the sharp end emerging just beneath her collarbone in a spray of gore.

Despite that, her grip on Lara remained ferociously strong. Lara shrieked as she again felt Claudia attempting to draw Alecto out through her flesh, the sensation no less excruciating through familiarity.

She drove her forehead again and again into the other woman's face, smashing her nose flat. Claudia's grip still didn't slacken in the slightest. 

Teeth grinding together to prevent herself from screaming, Lara tried to work another length of wood free from the ruined coffin, sharp splinters tearing her fingers. Just as her vision was turning red and she felt sure she must tear apart under the strain, the length of wood broke off. She drove it as hard as she could into Claudia's side.

Finally the other woman's hold on her slackened. 

Lara did scream now, staggering back. Then the pain ceased. It was so sudden that the shock of it almost made her faint. Head spinning, she managed to grab hold of the lip of the grave and started to pull herself up.

Claudia's hand caught her round the ankle.

Lara kicked out. The woman's fingers broke with the impact, and then she was free, slithering out of the grave and onto the grass. She lay there, flat out on her back, sobbing for breath, unable to make herself move.

Shapes were moving all around her. _Come on you bitch_: directed at herself rather than Alecto. Her muscles shook with effort. Slowly and painfully she rose into a crouch. 

There were at least six more of the newly risen dead, in various states of decay, closing in on her position fast. Lara could feel her heart as if it had risen up into her throat and throttled back a surging tide of terror. She tried to ready herself to fight again, however vain the effort might be. Then they were right on top of her . . .

And moving straight past, closing in on the open grave with Claudia impaled at the bottom of it – drawn to the scent of fresh blood like wasps to sugar.

Not pausing to count her luck, Lara launched herself forward in an uneven, stumbling run. She didn't look back, and tried to blot out the sounds coming from behind her.

* * *

"The tide's going out," Joanna said finally.

"You're sure?" Emil responded. He sounded tense and drained.

The two of them were huddled together, as far back in the cave as they as they could fit, nervously watching the incoming seawater as it stopped just a few feet short of their position. Emil thought he see could faces formed out of the foam, staring at them hungrily. The susurration of the tide formed what to his ears might have been voices, whispering to him in a language he didn't understand. He wondered vaguely if he'd gone mad at some point and just hadn't noticed.

"I'm sure. See, it's wet behind us and the sea is now stopping here. Definitely going out."

"If you say so."

"When have I ever been wrong?"

Emil thought she was joking, but as always with Joanna it was very difficult to tell. "I'm presuming you don't want me to answer that?"

For a time they just sat there, watching the tide come in and out, almost but not quite reaching them. Emil became increasingly aware of the heat emanating from Joanna's body, pressed close against him, and the more he tried to ignore it the more aware of it he became it crowded his thoughts. Amazing how the mind and body could react in the most difficult and inappropriate circumstances, he thought.

"So . . . We just sit here and wait then?" The tide did appear to be going out, albeit microscopically slowly.

He felt her shrug. "Unless you've got a better idea." She shivered, and he had a momentary urge to put his arm round her, which he quickly suppressed. "It should be safe in a few hours time."

If they had a few hours.

Joanna sighed, seemingly reading his thoughts. "Better to run the risk of being too late than to drown and definitely be too late."

"Yeah. You're probably right." He shook his head. "Ever think of giving all this crap up?"

He could feel her looking at him, though he couldn't see her eyes in the gloom. "What. You mean buy a small farm in . . . oh I don't know, Idaho, and retire there?"

"Not necessarily. I just mean do something . . . normal. I can't escape the feeling that I'm losing something each and every day, and sometime in the future I'm going to reach the point where there's nothing of what I was left. And that's without the frigging . . ." He made a waving gesture towards the sea. "Water elementals, or whatever the hell they are trying to drown me."

There was a pause before Joanna said anything. "Whenever I start to feel anything remotely that way I remind myself that I could be working 9 to 5 in an office somewhere."

He digested this. "So you think we're lucky then? Privileged to be allowed to do this?"

"I don't know that I'd put it exactly like that." She hesitated. "What I think is we have a calling. A certain set of skills and knowledge we can put to use to make the world a better place. In those circumstances it would be negligent of us not to make use of those skills and knowledge as well as we can."

"A high price though."

"Everything you do in life has its own set of consequences. I'd say the price of inactivity is higher."

"Maybe I've just got old and cynical." He winced at a sudden stab of pain from his gashed leg. "But I can't help wondering. Are we always doing what's right, or are we doing what's most convenient for us? This. Well this is different. But some of the things I've done recently . . ." He shook his head. "How far do you trust someone else to decide what's right for you?"

"Still. Could you just walk away, knowing what you do?"

He let out a long breath. "I really don't know."

For a time the just sat and talked, their conversation about the inconsequential things, interspersed with long silences, watching the tide retreat from them inch by inch.

At length, after about an hour, Emil felt Joanna stand up. He heard a soft slither of fabric.

"Joanna . . .?" A fingertip, lightly touching his lips cut him off. Then her other hand took hold of his, lifting it towards her and setting it down on her hip. He started in surprise as he felt bare skin beneath his palm, warn and soft to the touch.

Her weight settled onto his lap and he could feel his body responding – his breath quickening. "Emil, given the circumstances . . . Given what's likely going to happen. I think this is something we should do." Her voice sounded husky; maybe a little scared. Then her lips closed over his.

* * *

__

Phfft

The suppressed 10mm round stuck the armed guard between the eyes, blowing the back of skull out and taking most his brains along with it. For a moment he continued to stand upright as if nothing had happened. Then he toppled ponderously backwards, his blood spreading out across the wooden jetty.

"Vardis?" The voice called out from somewhere amid the cluster of onshore buildings. "You okay Vardis? I thought I heard something." There was the sound of approaching footsteps. "You hear me Vardis? Stop mucking about and answer me. This is serious . . ." Voice and footsteps trailed off simultaneously. A man dressed in black combat gear stood at the start of the jetty, staring at Vardis's body, gaping.

As he started to lift the MP5 there was a rapid _phfft, phfft, phfft_, rounds hitting him head chest and neck, throwing him backwards. He twitched a couple of times on the ground and was then still.

Lomax and Simon advanced rapidly onto shore. 

The cluster of prefabricated buildings stood at the foot of a broken cliff face – split asunder by a multitude of violent earthquakes over the past few millennia – broken black teeth rising against an angry lead sky. About half way up that jagged cliff a pair of bright orange fires burned, looking uncomfortably like gigantic glowing eyes in the gloom. This, the two mercenaries knew, was their destination. And likely their terminal destination at that.

They kept to the shadows, moving cautiously, Simon taking the lead. There was an electric light on inside the single-storey building to their right, and as they got near they could hear voices.

'Four', Simon indicated with a held up hand. 

'Take them out', Lomax's return gesture spoke just as eloquently.

The men were playing cards, music playing quietly in the background from an old cassette player. Although they appeared to be trying to relax there was a palpable air of nervousness, visible in the set of the card players' shoulders. One of them, fallen out of the current hand, stood up and started pacing. Someone told him to sit down, his voice raw-edged.

Flash bangs went through the open window. Simon kicked open the door and a few short, controlled bursts later it was all neatly taken care of. Four bullet-riddled corpses sprawled on the floor, none of them having managed to even reach their weapons.

They didn't bother to linger.

The sound of one of the portable toilets being flushed caught their attention. The cubicle door was swinging open. Lomax put three bullets into it. The _phfft, phfft, phfft_ was markedly louder this time as the suppresser started to lose its effectiveness through repeated use.

Silence.

Lomax advanced on the toilet cubicle cautiously, gun held ready. He kicked the door in hard so as catch anyone lurking behind it. The sound of it slamming back off the cubicle's wall echoed loudly through the camp. There was no one inside.

A flicker of movement showed in the corner of his vision. He span, pulling the trigger, bullets eating up a line of dirt, but failing to hit the fleeing figure before he made it into cover.

_Crack!_

Lomax had no idea how much the gunshot missed him by. To be on the safe side he ducked back behind the toilet cubicle for cover. Across the way Simon was running in a half crouch, circling round to try and get a better angle on the gunman.

Finally, stirred out of slumber by the racket, the rest of the encampment jolted into life.

Lomax shot the first two figures, emerging disoriented from one of the buildings, before they'd even realised what the threat was. After that though, the air came alive with bullets and he was forced to scramble back and lie low, losing sight of Simon.

Gritting his teeth, he returned fire.

* * *

The echo of the gunfire reached several hundred metres up the broken cliff face.

"Sir, shall I take some men and see what's happening?"

For a long time it seemed that Luke Charron had not heard the question, simply staring out at the sea. When he did finally speak it was enough to make all those present who were still capable of it jump. "No Strickland, I think not." A thin smile spread across his lips. "Mr. Lomax is a persistent character, I'll give him that. Still, alternative arrangements have been made." The smile flickered out.

"It's . . . all . . . starting to . . . go wrong for you . . . isn't it?" The ragged voice trailed away, the effort of speaking seemingly too much for it

Charron's gaze snapped round. "No Mr. Xoros, I think you'll find everything is perfectly under control."

Xoros was flanked by a pair of impassive looking guards. It looked like he would collapse if it wasn't for their support, his face ashen and sweat slicked. One of the sleeves of his jacket hung empty, flapping where the wind caught it. "Oh yes. I'm sure it is." Ragged sounding laughter of dubious sanity bubbled up, before trailing away into nothing. His eyes were red-rimmed and over bright.

"Strickland, gag the traitor please. I could do without the distraction of his babbling."

Strickland – a surprisingly small looking man, wiry and balding on top, with the rest of his greying hair shaved down in a number one cut – nodded quickly.

"You can't . . . quiet your inner doubts so easily though . . . can . . . uffff." Xoros's voice cut off abruptly. The scientifically chosen blows to his midriff were not, strictly speaking, entirely necessary to the gagging process.

"Much better." Charron's smile returned. 

He turned and surveyed the scene, controlling his breathing and ruthlessly strangling back the nervous internal clamouring. It was only natural he supposed, after all the painstaking years of preparation; the failed attempts that had come so close to costing him his life; all the turmoil of recent events, to feel this way, on the brink of culmination. The feelings got in the way though, and in the heat of what was to come they could prove costly. 

_Never be afraid to murder your babies . . ._

The location he had chosen for his great work was about three-quarters of the way up the broken cliff – a ten metre square area of level ground, split from the rest of the land by an earthquake more than three thousand years ago. By all rights it should have fallen into the sea long ago, but it hadn't, somehow clinging tenaciously onto existence. There were signs that it had once formed part of a man made structure – perhaps an amphitheatre to judge from the broken remnants of stepped terraces still surviving along one side. A shattered block of weathered marble that must have weighed several tens of tons showed signs of a faded carving – something strange and scaly it was no longer possible to properly discern.

If asked to explain why here, Charron, for once, would have been unable to provide a concrete answer. It was a thin place – a borderland between realities – and that was essential for the magicks he would try to work. There were countless other thin places though, each of which would serve that purpose just as well. The White Tower, back in the heart of Thessaloniki, was one. There were numerous others in Britain and America too, all much more accessible than this. But here it was to be. 

Charron had first come across this spot six years ago, as part of his initial searches for the Erinyes figurines. He had known even then that this was where the crossover rite would take place. Perhaps it was _Her_ will. Or perhaps it was nothing more than his fancy.

A pair of signal fires had been lit on either side of this fragment of ground at Charron's behest, casting wildly flickering orange light and adding to the already sweltering heat. It was at the centre of this broken arena that the focal point of the ritual lay though.

There was a trio of metal pillars – rusting and stained black iron, no more than a metre high each. While they looked ancient in their own right, they were obviously fairly recent additions to this place. Mounted on top of the centre and rightmost pillars were the two surviving Erinyes figurines; Alecto and Tisiphone. The left pillar bore an altogether different burden, Hsu Yi standing shackled to it, bowed under the weight of the chains she still wore.

Charron looked at her closely – through her to the creature bound within.

Megaera obviously felt the scrutiny. "She won't thank you Magician, for all that you do for her." Hsu Yi's eyes remained downcast, but the voice was not her own – its timbre strident and distorted.

"Thank me?" Charron sounded amused. "I do not do this for thanks, Kindly One." He imbued the title with an ironic twist.

"She will not give you what you want." She lifted her gaze, eyes flashing copper where the light from the flames caught them.

"She does not have to give me anything. I do this out of love. It is my gift to her – my honoured service."

"You are deluded, Magician. If you do this then very shortly those delusions will be stripped bare. She will not provide you with what you seek."

"All I seek, my dear grudging lady, is change." He smiled at her.

She hissed – an unreal metallic sound. "That, I grant you, you will get."

"Then there we have it."

Those copper eyes bored into him. He smiled in their face. 

"Magician, you betray everything here today. You are . . ." a pause, searching through a strange and unfamiliar vocabulary. "You are a Judas Goat, leading your kind into the slaughterhouse. Except this time, goat, the goat will not escape the slaughter."

"And you Megaera, are growing desperate. You would say anything to save yourself."

She hissed again, louder than before. Charron's lips twitched, and with a thought he tightened the flaming bonds that secured the Erinye inside her host. The hiss changed rapidly into a shriek, then even that was cut off. Hsu Yi's shoulder's rose and fell rapidly, her breath coming in shallow gulps.

He looked away from her. Two more pieces of the jigsaw remained to be filled. 

He could feel those pieces, close now and getting closer all the time. But still, it was frustrating to have any element at this late stage outside of his control. It took a considerable effort to hold that frustration in check. He forced himself to go on with his preparations.

Resting on the ground beside him there was an object draped in white cloth. Charron now bent down, slowly and slightly unsteady on his prosthetic leg, and picked it up. 

Removing the cloth revealed something that at first glance resembled a dead tarantula, lying on its back with its legs curled up. Closer inspection showed it was a severed hand. The blood hadn't quite dried where it had been severed from the wrist, bone gleaming amid the raw flesh. Xoros was staring directly at, eyes feverish.

Charron noticed the scrutiny. "Do not worry yourself. It won't go to waste."

Xoros's protest was reduced to an incoherent moan behind the gag. Charron switched him out, laying his own hand on top of the severed one.

It took a few seconds of concentration, using the wisps power that still clung to the flesh to channel some of the heat from the fires. Abruptly the fingertips started to char and blacken. Charron lifted his own hand away. The fingers twitched, giving the illusion of life. Thin streamers of white smoke started to rise from them. Finally there was a popping sound and the fingers and thumb burst into blue-tinged flame, burning like candlewicks.

Though muffled, Xoros's scream was still piercingly loud. Suddenly sweat was pouring from his skin in sheets, his cheeks going in and out rapidly behind the gag. The scream did stop after a few seconds, but it was replaced by a constant stream of anguished moans and gasps. Shudders wracked his shoulders, twitches and spasms passing through his body unceasingly. It looked like he was suffering some kind of fit.

"A hand of glory," Charron informed him. "I'm sure you're familiar with the term from your . . . experimentation."

Xoros's gaze focused again, and he managed to suppress the more violent shudders. Hate showed through the mask of pain.

"The books you read were wrong of course. Written by idiots with scarcely more knowledge than yourself." Charron laid the hand at a point marked as the centre of the three pillars, where it continued to burn slowly. "A hand freshly taken from a living person is far more effective than one taken from an unconsecrated grave, whether or not it belongs to a murderer executed for his crimes. And digging it up at midnight on a witch's Sabbath really is the height of pointlessness." He smiled at Xoros. "I'm told the side effects for the person the hand is taken from are quite unpleasant – like it is still attached to them. But think of it this way; you get to render your Queen one small service, which might in some small way mitigate against your other failings."

Low, broken female laughter started up and Charron looked round.

"Something amuses you Megaera?"

"Not Megaera . . ." Hsu Yi's dark eyes stared at him, shadow by her fringe. "And, yes. You amuse me . . . goat." She started to laugh again. "Oh, I like that. Suits you perfectly."

"Well, it pleases me to see you can find humour even in this situation, my little thief."

The laughter slowly died away. "I've ceased to care about myself, goat. But I think I'll enjoy watching you fall, right at the last."

"Don't get your hopes too high, my dear. Even now the last pieces slot themselves neatly into place." He raised his voice. "Lara! Welcome! Come join us. No need to be shy. We've all been waiting for you."

* * *

__

Bang!

A moment later there was the sound of a body toppling over with a thud. Then silence.

Lomax strained to hear, his jaw clenched tight, ears still ringing from the prolonged exchanges of gunfire. After a moment he managed to make out quiet footsteps, approaching his position. A few seconds listening was enough for him to determine that it definitely wasn't Simon. 

The footsteps reached the corner of his cover, paused for a second or so, then stepped round . . .

Lomax fired a short, raking burst of bullets, the suppresser now almost entirely worn out. 

The person rounding the corner anticipated him though, rolling forward before coming up unscathed, a handgun aimed at his exposed stomach from point-blank range. Lomax had no chance to react, but the expected gunshot didn't come right away. He stared, recognition dawning. "You!"

"Hello Lomax," Joanna drawled. "We really do have to stop meeting like this."

A few minutes later the four of them – Lomax, Simon, Joanna and Emil – stood together at the centre of the encampment, the area secure.

"A couple of them surrendered," Simon was saying. "I tied them up and locked them in there." He indicated one of the huts.

"Long as a they don't get in our way, I pretty much don't give a fuck." Lomax was looking at Emil and Joanna. "Hicks?" he finally asked.

After a pause Joanna simply shook her head.

Lomax turned away, teeth gritted. He couldn't say the answer was a surprise, but when he'd seen Joanna he'd allowed himself a faint spark of hope. That now died, collapsing inwards to feed the ravenous inner black hole of rage and despair that was what he had become. He wanted to scream; to hit something repeatedly until it hurt the way he did. Croft, Charron – the two of them had become almost interchangeable in his head. Twin nemeses, tormenting him with his failures and inadequacies. He struggled for calm, but that was beyond his grasp. In the end he settled for snarling: "What happened? No. Forget it. Hardly matters."

It really was all over. Hicks had been there right from the start, before even Simon. The last real link with the old ideal, hacked away. He forced the thoughts aside and tried to focus on the here and now. It was a struggle

" . . . Charron." Lomax heard Joanna saying, though he missed the context.

"He's up there," Simon nodded towards the twin flames, high above them. "And I doubt very much he's waiting on our convenience."

"Bastard of a climb for a man with one leg," Emil noted.

"So there's got to be an easier way up." Unless the bastard flew, Lomax thought. Considering who they were talking about, it remained a rather uncomfortable possibility.

"I can ask my new friends in there," Simon said.

"You do that."

The captives were surprisingly forthcoming. Lomax had expected the one-legged man to inspire terrified silence in his workforce, but they proved to be pragmatic about it. Less than five minutes later they'd found the steps cut into and bolted onto the cliff face, leading precariously upwards into the darkness. Still, as Emil had said, a bastard of a climb for someone with a prosthetic limb.

"You two coming then?" He looked back as Emil and Joanna lingered behind them, heads together, seemingly deep in discussion.

"Yeah. We're ready." Emil let out a breath and started up behind him.

They got as far as half way up without incident. Then Lomax experienced a sudden feeling of apprehension – of onrushing doom. 

As he reached for his gun there was a rush of air. There, less than ten feet in front of them and blocking the way forward – darkly resplendent, its wings flexing – was the Messenger.

* * *

Lara felt as cold and hard as ice. Emotion had become something she had no more than academic familiarity with. Even Alecto's rage was nothing more than a distant metallic taint as she walked down towards the fires.

She could see Charron, back lit by flame, staring up at her – no doubt grinning. The others present were no more than background scenery. Fear was curious by its absence. She didn't know why that was. She should have been terrified.

"No threats Lara? No defiance?" She could see him grinning now, but just kept on walking. Behind him three of his men had levelled guns at her. It didn't seem a particularly relevant detail. "That does make a pleasant change."

She was on the same level as him now, less than ten feet away, still approaching.

"Close enough I think." Charron clenched one hand into a fist and Lara was aware of a brief flare of brightness in the periphery of her vision. Suddenly the air around felt as thick as treacle, pulling at her limbs. She got the sense she could still go on, but an inner voice told her to stop – to keep her cards close to her chest. She obeyed it.

"You didn't by any chance happen to run into Claudia, did you Lara?" Charron raised an eyebrow inquiringly.

Lara felt curiously detached when she replied. "There was something of a grave occurrence."

Charron appeared momentarily nonplussed, as if it had finally occurred to him that Lara wasn't behaving at all how he expected she should. His grin took on a rather strained look. "Well, no matter. You're here now and Alecto's last chance of escape has gone. I have to say I really didn't expect you to be quite so accommodating as this."

For a time she just looked at him. He really was a very ordinary man, she thought. If you didn't allow the surface aura to distract you. In fact, quite pathetic really. She wasn't sure how he had managed to grow to be such a monster in her thoughts. "Oh, do shut up," she said finally.

"You're hardly in a position . . ."

Lara ignored what he was saying and instead tried to step forward. For an instant there was resistance – an awful burning sensation affecting every inch of her skin simultaneously. It should have been paralysing, but it felt curiously distant – an external thing affecting only the surface, which she was safe to ignore. The resistance abruptly turned brittle then snapped, leaving her free to move again.

She stepped forward. Charron was taken completely unawares.

He managed a half step back before she caught up with him, one hand grabbing him tightly around the throat.

"Let go of him or I'll shoot." The voice was oddly familiar, although she didn't recognise the speaker.

_Ignore him. The Magician's own defences shield you._

Lara didn't really care, her grip tightening, slowly crushing Charron's throat. His mouth was working, trying to say something, but no sound came out. His face was turning bright red, sweat streaming down it, and his sunglasses had slid half off, his glass eye staring vacantly back at from the surrounding mass of scar tissue.

Inexorably she began to march him back, towards the edge of the cliff, his efforts to break her grip weak and ineffectual. 

"Myself and Alecto came to an accommodation. Until you're disposed of at any rate." Lara's voice was matter of fact. Charron's struggles intensified, but had no more effect than before.

"I'm warning you." Strickland, she remembered, was his name. The man who'd led the ambush on their dockside raid. It was meaningless information and she filed it away.

The cliff edge was within six feet now.

Simultaneously, Strickland and one of his men drew .45 calibre pistols. The underling was fractionally the first of the two to shoot, straight at Lara's exposed back.

There was another flare of light from the Hand of Glory, Xoros moaning between his captors, then slumping, held upright only by their grasp. As the firing pin came down on the chambered round there was a violent surge of excess energy. Instead of being rifled down the barrel, the bullet exploded, turning the surround metal molten; tearing the gun apart.

The man who'd fired screamed, his hand ripped apart in an explosion of blood, bone splinters and molten metal. Strickland cast his own weapon aside as if it had suddenly turned itself into a venomous snake.

The man's screams distracted Lara's attention – just briefly, but it was crucial. There was a horrible prickling, static electricity sensation as she felt Charron reaching out and grasping the unleashed power of pain and blood. Desperately she shoved him hard backwards, throwing herself flat and rolling to one side as the air where she'd been standing became incandescently hot, then exploded in a fireball.

She saw Charron tottering right on the edge of the cliff, unable to arrest his momentum, arms wind-milling . . . before everything vanished in a blazing mass of red.

It was a few seconds later when she came back to herself, gasping to draw breath into her overheated lungs, portions of her hair cooked to a crisp and her skin was angry sunburnt red. Blisters were forming on her back, which had taken the brunt of it. Groaning in pain, she forced herself up.

First glance showed no sign of Luke Charron. Elation briefly burgeoned. 

And just as quickly cut off again. She saw his arms, clinging onto the precipice, the top of his head just visible above the rocks. He was struggling to pull himself up but didn't seem able to manage it.

Lara walked across to him. 

He didn't notice her until she was standing almost directly on top off him, blocking out the light from the fires. His sunglasses had fallen off entirely and now she could see his one good eye, gazing up at her. It seemed to contain acceptance. "Funny how things turn out, isn't it?" The half smile for once did seem genuine; wearily amused.

There was no hint of rage or hate. It was just something horribly unpleasant that she had to do. She lifted her foot, ready to kick him off.

Something hit her hard across the back of her head and everything rushed towards black.

"Ah, Claudia. Thank you. Impeccable timing as always . . ."

Then unconsciousness swallowed Lara up.

* * *

Lomax and Simon opened fire together, pouring a torrent of lead at the Messenger's torso. Coming up directly behind them, Emil and Joanna quickly joined in.

Nothing happened.

As before there was a vague impression of time being altered – of bullets that would have ripped into it being rolled back and edited out of existence, or at least transposed into an alternative existence that wasn't this one. It happened so rapidly that the air seemed to flicker.

The Messenger spread its arms wide – started to sing.

* * *

Back in Thessaloniki, Dimitriou Pappas struggled hard to focus through the agony.

Even if he had been fit and healthy it would have been an immense struggle; having to dredge up knowledge that had lain dormant and buried for more than twenty years, and had been no more than sketchy in the first place. Attempting something far beyond the range of his meagre skills even then.

Now it was all but impossible. 

Each breath was a rasping buzz saw slicing through his lungs, and no matter how hard he strained he couldn't seem to take in enough oxygen. The pain from his mangled legs was engaged in some kind of hideous competition with that from his cracked ribs, clamouring against each other for greater prominence. 

Somewhere close he could hear dogs howling, and once he thought he saw a dead man – stomach split open and entrails tangling round his legs, in danger of tripping him – walk past. It was becoming impossible to distinguish hallucination from reality.

It wouldn't come. The power remained stubbornly beyond his reach.

He stared at the feather bitterly. _Fucking thing_. A spasm made him clench it so tightly in his fist that it cut open the flesh of his palm. It appeared to absorb the blood into itself.

Too late. Like winning the lottery on your deathbed. 

A spasm passed through his body, a ragged cry wrenched from his lips. For a time the world faded to nothing. It took all the strength he had left to find even a fingernail grip on consciousness again.

Still holding the feather, he noted. 

_Of course, there is another way_. 

Part of him shied away from the very idea. 

_No use crying over split milk, old man. You're dead anyway, right?_

He thought about it, weighing the implications. Do nothing, or do something was what it boiled down to. Put like that the decision became easy. Better to be damned for what you do than what you don't.

Dimitriou closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and did something he had sworn he would never do. His breath rattled once, then stopped. It didn't start up again.

The death magic was strong enough that the feather was limned suddenly in white-hot fire, turning to liquid in Dimitriou's lifeless grasp. There was a fleeting impression of something, savage and deadly, shooting away into the distance, seeking out the feather's former owner.

After a short while one of the dogs found his body, now just an empty shell. It started to chew at his foot.

* * *

This time the Messenger's song was no lullaby. Instead, a howling discord of clashing notes blasted from its mouth – a storm of ephemeral razorblades. 

The wave of sound hit them head on. Lomax heard himself cry out and staggered backwards. He only managed to prevent himself being thrown back down the cliff by dropping to his hands and knees and clinging onto the steps for dear life.

Beside him Simon somehow remained upright, though he looked dazed and punch-drunk, almost out on his feet. A cut had opened up on his scalp, coating one side of his face in a slick red mask. Lomax realised then that he was bleeding too, cuts opened on his side and chest where the vocal assault had rent his skin. Behind him, he was vaguely aware that Joanna – her body mass lighter than the rest of them – had been knocked out over the side of the steps and was clinging on by her finger tips, slowly slipping. He saw Emil, crawling on his hands and knees, blood dripping from his mouth, towards her. Then his attention was snapped firmly back to the Messenger as it descended – fluid as quicksilver – towards them.

It went for Simon – the least affected by its song, and therefore the most immediate threat.

Simon snapped out of his daze. He fired point-blank into the dark angel's stomach. The bullets had no more affect than before though, and the Messenger caught hold of him, one hand on either of the Englishman's bald head, cradling him gently – a lover preparing for a passionate kiss.

Lomax tried to rise from his hand and knees – to do something; anything. His strength gave out halfway, dropping him back. Rage and despair fought to fill the emptiness.

Something strange happened. 

Suddenly the air around the Messenger came alive. There was a sense of deathly cold, accompanied by the impression of something savage and intangible, all claws and ripping fangs, forged from the air itself. It tore in to the false angel ferociously – a churning maelstrom of fury. 

The Messenger shrieked. 

The sound was oddly beautiful, piercing Lomax to the core – filling him with a mix of grief and longing. It went on and on – a searing lament. Then, finally – just as abruptly as it started – it stopped, and the air surrounding the Messenger became calm again. 

To all external appearances the angel stood unharmed, still holding onto Simon's head.

Simon pulled the trigger of the MP5 again.

This time there was no slight flicker – no sense of time being rolled back and diverted down a new course. The 10mm bullets hit it directly in the stomach.

It was still somewhat akin to shooting a metal statue, the bullets raising incandescent sparks and leaving deep gouges in the Messenger's substance before ricocheting wildly. Despite that, its serenely beautiful face twisted in a grimace that suggested both rage and pain.

Simon yanked himself free of its grip, his weapon coming up empty with a dry rattling sound. Backing away from the Messenger, he unslung an M16 assault-rifle from his shoulder. The angel's wings flexed, as if it was about to pounce.

Lomax finally stirred from the lethargy that had taken him, and shot it in the face. One bullet gouged a jagged scar down an immaculate cheekbone. A second hit it in the eye, shattering it. The Messenger let out another heartrendingly beautiful scream.

Instead of pouncing, it lifted itself into the air, swooping down low over the top of them.

Lomax pressed himself flat to the steps. Simon wasn't quite as quick to duck. The Messenger caught him under the arms and lifting him, carrying him out into the midnight dark sky as it soared away from the cliff.

Lomax drew a bead on the two interlocked figures but held off firing for fear of hitting Simon. He swore under his breath, unsure what to do as the two figures got further and further away.

Then there _was_ a burst of gunfire. 

The muzzle flash from Simon's M16 briefly lit up the two airborne figures – just long enough to show a cascade of falling feathers. 

The Messenger lurched violently to one side, struggling to maintain its altitude. For a second or so it seemed that it would manage it, until Simon let loose with another burst from the assault rifle. The two of them, still locked together, plummeted like a stone, down towards the blood-tainted sea.

Finally Lomax lowered his gun, his breath coming raggedly. 

It was impossible to see any sign of either Simon or the Messenger in the darkness. Beside him Emil was just finishing hauling Joanna back up onto the steps. 

At length Lomax turned away from the sea. "Come on," he said simply. "We've got business to finish."

* * *

"And so, it begins."

Luke Charron sat on the ground in the nearest approximation he could manage to a cross-legged position. He'd lost his prosthetic limb over the side of the cliff and couldn't stand unaided. His good eye slid closed, and Lara felt an air of prickling tension. 

The light cast by the fires began to dance hypnotically. Combined with the incessant pounding in her head, it turned her surroundings into an LSD dreamscape.

She stood behind the centremost of the three metal pillars, manacled securely to it by the wrists. To her left Claudia had been similarly bound, behind the pillar that bore the statue of Tisiphone. To her right Hsu Yi slumped under the weight of her chains, seemingly oblivious to the world around her.

Lara's gaze settled on the burning object that lay at the centre of the three pillars – something she'd only just realised was a severed hand. Occasionally Xoros still twitched and moaned between the two men who held him, but otherwise he gave the impression of being comatose. Then Claudia let out a soft moan – whether of anguish or ecstasy it was impossible to tell – and Lara's attention snapped round to her.

In front of Claudia, the Tisiphone figurine appeared momentarily to glow, white hot. Then – shockingly – it exploded. 

Each glowing shard of shrapnel appeared to pierce Claudia's body unerringly, her back arching taut as she threw her head back. Lara had a brief, ghostly impression of a winged, barbed figure appearing in the air and being sucked straight into the woman. Then it was over, everything calm and still again. Claudia was slumped over the pillar, her back shuddering with each breath she took. There was no sign of any external injury.

Lara became aware that Charron was looking directly at her. Somewhere distant she could sense Alecto struggling furiously – futilely – steel eyes blazing.

_Your turn now Lara._

Charron didn't speak and she couldn't tell for sure whether the thought somehow came from him, or was her own invention. The figurine in front of her was glowing and she tried to fling it off the top of the pillar, away from her. It wouldn't budge, seemingly welded on. The heat radiating from it was savage.

It exploded.

She felt the metal shards ripping into her body, but only in an academic way. Pain had no involvement. Then she was two different beings occupying the same space, each completely alien to the other, able to sense the thoughts of the other but not understanding them one iota. 

_Lara_.

_Alecto_. 

_Who am I? _

_Does it matter?_

_I am the Unceasing. No chains of metal shall hold me._

_Fuck off you stupid bitch. This isn't part of the deal. You don't belong here._

Her gaze settled on Charron, seated calmly in front of her. It was like looking through two separate pairs of eyes at once, the images overlaid on top of each other. _Magician, I shall tear your soul from your body and devour it over an eternity_.

The part that was still Lara watched with a kind of cynical detachment as the chains holding her became fluid and ephemeral and she tried to surge towards him. _You don't have wings anymore, fuckwit. Stop trying to flap them . . ._

Everything vanished in an ocean of fire and pain. Lara could hear herself screaming and Alecto screaming, blazing heat searing into her. Dimly she was aware that Charron was speaking: "You are just as helpless as your sisters, Alecto. Your escape attempts harm only yourself. Ask Megaera. She can tell you."

If possible the pain became even worse as Alecto flew into a psychotic rage. 

_Stop it! Stop it!_ Lara found herself crying. It went on and on, transcending pain to become something else entirely. 

Finally, just as abruptly as it had started, it stopped. 

She founded herself doubled over, gasping for breath, tears streaming down her cheeks. Alecto bristled like an irritable porcupine, but she seemed less prominent than before – almost subdued. Now Lara could sense the bonds of fire that wrapped their souls, as well as the steel manacles that held them physically; exactly the same as she'd 'seen' earlier within Hsu Yi.

"Good." Charron's voice was flat. "Now Strickland. It is time."

The short, crop-haired man nodded. He looked uneasy. After a second or so delay he unsheathed a combat knife from around his ankle, crossing towards Claudia. His posture suggested hesitance – even fear.

The blonde woman dwarfed him. Flames glinted on the knife blade, and for a brief instant it appeared to Lara that Claudia's eyes had turned to quicksilver. Without any obvious communication passing between them, Claudia extended a manacled wrist towards him. 

Briefly the knife blade shook, although Strickland covered it up quickly. He drew it firmly down Claudia's vein, cutting deeply. Blood welled up, glittering ruby droplets running down to sheath her hand in a bright red glove, dripping from her fingertips onto the metal pillar. There it collected in the channels cut in the pillar's sides, trickling slowly to the ground. Strickland quickly repeated the process with Claudia's other wrist.

Lara felt the world around her distort, filling with strange colours that were not colours. It felt as if something fundamental was going to rip apart, her insides knotting queasily. Then the worst of the sensation passed and everything returned to a vague facsimile of normality. 

Strickland was standing directly in front of her. Briefly their eyes met and Strickland looked away hastily, his face blanching.

"No. The other one first. This one still thinks to resist." Charron's voice was commanding. Blood was continuing to flow steadily from Claudia's opened wrists, the woman just standing there placidly.

Hsu Yi was still slumped limply, completely unreactive as Strickland took hold of her left wrist and slashed it open. Only when her blood started to run down her chains and splatter over the metal pillar did she even appear to notice. Then her head snapped up, her eyes opening wide – bright copper disks. The words that came out of her mouth were directed at Charron, but not anything remotely human

Charron made a gesture – flicking away a mosquito.

Hsu Yi or Megaera, or both, screamed. Lara sensed the fire chains snapping tight.

"Her other wrist. Cut it," Charron ordered Strickland, who'd taken a startled step back.

Lara felt the reality encompassing distortion again, stronger and more lengthy than before. This time she had the impression of cracks opening up, here and for miles around. Small intangible alien things began to creep through. Again, after a slightly longer delay this time, everything seemed to settle back, although now normalcy was scarcely even a pretence.

Strickland was in front of her again. She knew what was going to happen next.

Lara struggle to find a way out, but there was none. There wasn't enough play in the chains binding her to allow them to be used as a weapon, and they held her securely. _So what to you suggest now then? You're the frigging goddess with divinity flowing through her veins._ Alecto though was silent – seemed almost to have conceded defeat.

"I won't ask you to co-operate." 

Charron made another casual looking gesture and everything turned red. Alecto's pain. Her own pain. It was indistinguishable, stealing away her will.

She didn't feel the knife blade cutting her, although she did feel the wetness running down over her hands as she began to bleed.

* * *

"Hurry! It's started." We're going to be too late was appended implicitly. Joanna surged ahead, running heedless of the treacherous footing or the long drop.

Lomax didn't need telling. No one could have failed to notice the change in atmosphere – a sense of brittleness, like you were walking on thin ice and if you didn't tread carefully you would fall through. He moved to match her pace, Emil trailing a few metres behind, heavily favouring his gashed leg.

As they reached the top, Lomax stopped despite himself. For several seconds as he stared, he thought he saw three winged figures chained to metal posts. They were strange, vaguely humanoid things of metal, barbs and claws; utterly alien yet with something about them that suggested femininity – albeit cruel and remorselessly hard femininity. He felt his flesh crawl looking at them.

All of them were bleeding from their wrists, the blood flowing strangely – first dropping normally to the ground, then flowing inwards in glistening rivulets to where Charron sat cross-legged, before finally pouring back into the air above the Magician's head, completely against the pull of gravity. There the blood vanished into a patch of throbbing nothingness that appeared to feed on the blood, growing larger with its sustenance.

Then there was a blip, and the figures were back to human beings again. He recognised both Lara and Claudia, though the third woman was a stranger to him. The one thing that remained constant was that they were still bleeding.

No one appeared to have noticed their arrival yet, and his gaze settled his on Charron. He lifted his gun and started to pull the trigger.

"No!" The warning shout from Joanna reached him just as he felt the heat and humming vibration emanating from the MP5's magazine. 

He'd seen what happened when you tried to shoot Charron before and managed to hurl the weapon away from him in time. It detonated whilst still in mid air, metal flying apart in a series of ear-splitting rapid fire cracks.

That did – finally – attract attention.

Still distracted from calling out her warning, he saw Joanna go down heavily, blindsided by a short, hard looking man who hit her hard around the side of the head. Then he was too busy fighting his own battle to see or care what happened next.

The two men holding Xoros upright dropped him and rushed Lomax together. Lomax caught the first of them with a short, sharp punch to the face, sending him staggering backwards, nose bloodied. The second went in low beneath his guard, catching Lomax in the midriff with his shoulder and sending them both sprawling together in a heap.

As his opponent grabbed on tight, trying to squeeze the life out of him, Lomax drove his forehead into his face, then inserted a hand, gouging at the man's eyes. There was an anguished groan, and the grip on him slackened. He threw his assailant off.

The second man was cut off from rejoining the fray as Emil finally made it to the top of the steps. Despite the leg injury he seemed to quickly get on top of things.

Lomax beat his opponent in regaining his feet, kicking the man hard in the head as he rose. He dropped face first to the ground. A second or so later the other one joined his fellow, Emil doubling him up with a series of vicious blows to the stomach, before driving an elbow into the back of his neck.

A shadow moved behind Emil. Lomax opened his mouth to warn him, but too late. 

The man who'd taken Joanna unawares stamped down on the back of Emil's injured leg, dropping him to his knees. A violent shove sent Emil sliding down the steps they'd just come up, face first. After about twenty feet of howling, bone-jarring progress he managed to arrest his fall, lying their groaning.

"Mr. Lomax." The man pulled a knife, its edge already stained in blood. "Strickland. We almost met before. I've always quite wanted to test myself against you. Man to man."

Lomax grimaced. "Great. Another boring cunt."

Strickland's face took on a pinched expression. He aimed a short stab at Lomax's mid section. The mercenary managed to twist out of the blade's path and even deliver a cuffing blow to the side of Strickland's head before he retreated out of range again. 

They circled one another cautiously. Lomax's gaze darted over Strickland's shoulder towards Charron, who still appeared to be completely caught up in the ritual, oblivious to what going on. The three women kept on bleeding, and the blood kept on being drawn to the patch of nothing above Charron's head. Lomax could feel his insides crawling with tension – a sense of being near a bomb ticking down to immanent detonation.

Strickland stabbed at him again, and this time Lomax was fractionally slower to react. The knife blade glanced off the side of his ribcage, leaving a long, bloody cut. He hissed in pain.

Another lightning fast downwards slash had Lomax swaying back instinctively, the knife blade whistling through empty air, no more than an inch from his face. His attempt to retaliate left him with the leg of his trousers sliced open and flapping in the air, plus a painful cut to the meat of his forearm.

Strickland tried a swift forward lunge to press the advantage and finish it there and then. Lomax saw it coming this time, evading easily. They resumed slowly circling.

Lomax's blood dripped steadily onto the dirt. Sweat was running down his face and he felt rather light-headed. Impatience clawed at him, mingling with dread. This was taking too long.

"Disappointing. I'd expected more of a challenge."

Lomax didn't bother to respond, or even to wait for Strickland to finish speaking. Instead he rushed him, catching Strickland on the back foot. Carrying the smaller man back, he slammed him hard into the side the cliff. 

There was a weak, ineffectual blow to the side of Lomax's ribcage, but he ignored it, concentrating on pummelling Strickland. He smashed the man's head back against the rocks repeatedly until he went limp, then repeated it a few more times for good measure. Eventually he let go of the rage driving him and Strickland slumped bonelessly. Blood started to spread out spreading out behind his head.

Lomax stepped back. 

It was surprisingly difficult to catch his breath. Then his leg buckled, causing him to stumble. The world gyrated before his eyes, up and down becoming esoteric concepts – like the finer points of relativity theory.

He caught himself; persuaded the world to stop spinning. When he looked down he was quite surprised to see Strickland's knife, buried up to the hilt between two of his ribs. He shook his head distractedly. _Unimportant detail_.

"Charron, you miserable fucker!" Lomax tried to advance on the magician, each step strange and floating – how he imagined walking on the moon would feel. When he got to within about six feet he hit an invisible wall, unable to advance further no matter how hard he strained. The world started to spin again. "Useless, cowardly piece of shit."

"Ah, Lomax." Charron, didn't look round, or seem to break his concentration, the blood continuing to flow unbroken, into the air above his head. "Sorry, but I don't really have the time to talk to you just now. Bit pre-occupied I'm afraid. You could try speaking to one of my secretaries. I'm sure they'll be able to arrange an appointment at a mutually convenient time."

"Ha fucking ha." Lomax pulled out one of the grenades he'd taken from the _Silver Bow's _armoury. "Wonder if the same thing will happen to this as my gun eh, Lukey?" The pin came free with a _snick_.

This time Charron did look round. For a moment the blood flow wavered, droplets splattering across the magician and the surrounding ground. It quickly resumed though. "Don't be cretinous Scott. And please shut the fuck up. I don't have time for idiotic interruptions."

"Well that's too bad." Lomax tried and failed to take another step forward. He looked down at the grenade in his hand, and with an inward shrug relaxed his grip to allow it to detonate. From the amount of blood pumping from the knife wound it was likely to make a difference of no more than a couple of minutes anyway.

Seconds passed. The grenade didn't go off.

"Noble. But a wasted gesture, Scott. I've taken precautions to ensure nothing will go wrong."

"The hand." It was Lara who spoke, her voice weak. 

Lomax looked at her in surprise. His vision wavered, and for a moment he could see two of her – one version looking rather metallic and spiky. "I was going to kill you, I think." He frowned and thought about it for a moment. It didn't seem terribly important anymore. "But now I can't be bothered. I'd much rather kill this bastard instead."

"That's nice Lomax, but try to concentrate." Now she sounded exasperated. "The hand. In front of him. See it?"

He saw it – fingers blackened, the first knuckles burnt down to the bone, blue tinged flames crackling and spitting. Something about it left an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach, but he didn't let that give him pause. A harsh gasp was dragged from his lips as he bent down, the knife blade grating against one of his ribs. He ignored it, picking burning hand up. It came as something of a surprise that it was as simple as that and nothing mystical tried to stop him.

"Put that down."

"Hmm? You say something Lukey, you cunt? Oh, you mean this? Bit of a health hazard I'd have thought. Shows disturbing signs of necrophiliac tendencies. Might want to consult a shrink on that one. Not normal you know? Anyway I think I'll get rid of it. Best way."

"That wasn't a request Scott." Charron sounded genuinely annoyed now, and the blood flow ceased entirely – for a few seconds at least.

Lomax suddenly found it was almost impossible to draw breath, his throat constricting tight, as if invisible hands were throttling him. "Wow . . . Darth Vader . . . Yeah . . . I can see the . . . resemblance . . . All you need . . . is the gimp . . . suit."

There was a roaring in his ears and his vision had got so that it was like looking at the world through a couple of beer glasses. He didn't sense the coming threat until it landed on his back.

The Messenger, its wings tattered and only barely functional, swooped down unevenly, grabbing hold of him. For a few seconds it seemed that the additional weight would prevent it becoming airborne again. Then, jerky as an early Harryhausen stop-motion figure, wings beating the air frantically, it lifted him into the sky, climbing unevenly.

* * *

Lara watched – light-headed from blood loss – as Scott Lomax was carried off. His expression looked more bemused than anything else. 

As they got to about hundred feet above them, out over the jagged rocks, she saw something drop – a tiny speck of blue-tinged flame, tumbling end over end. 

She counted to three. There was a brilliant flash. A moment later the roar of the grenade exploding washed over her. Flesh, blood and fragments of the Messenger's unearthly substance rained down in a brief flurry.

The flash faded. She blinked; emotions numb and detached.

"Not, admittedly, exactly to plan." Her gaze snapped back to Charron as he spoke. "Although perhaps now we can continue without any more fatuous interruptions."

* * *

Charron had to all external appearances slipped back into his trance.

The flow of blood had resumed and Lara could feel herself getting weaker and weaker with every passing second. Simply remaining upright was effort enough. Hsu Yi had slumped forward over the pillar she was chained to and looked to be unconscious. Claudia, meanwhile, stood calm and impervious, looking like a statue of a saint in the process of being matyred as she slowly bled to death.

At first there had been pain – Alecto's pain, experienced as her own – but now even that had faded to a whisper. Indeed she could barely detect her occupier anymore – just a vague lingering sense of impotent rage as _she_ flowed out along with her blood and life.

It took Lara a while to realise that – now that the Hand of Glory was gone – she could actually see the threads of power that Charron was manipulating. They flowed out of the three of them – and the three Erinyes – into the air around him. There they twisted and intertwined like mating snakes, before flowing upwards and inwards into the nothingness – wedges being forced into a hairline crack in reality; gradually forcing it wider. 

As she continued to stare it almost felt like she could reach out and touch them . . .

She tried. There didn't seem much left to lose.

The threads burned white hot, but pain had become almost as familiar as her other guest recently – and this particular pain had an alluring, almost addictive quality. Cautiously – holding her breath for fear that she would alert Charron to what she was trying – she attempted to manipulate the thread flowing from her.

At first, to her screaming frustration, nothing happened. It was crude and clumsy, like attempting to strain oil from the surface of a puddle with her bare hands. Forcing a semblance of calm, she modified her approach slightly, trying to persuade the thread towards her with her mind directly, rather than pulling it forcibly with a thought-analogue of her hands.

There was a twitch. 

She started violently, heart thudding. Suddenly she sensed Alecto going wild, shrieking in fury, straining once more to break her bonds. The other two sisters joined in the cacophony. Charron's expression twisted into a grimace. 

_No, you idiots . . ._

Then she realised that the Erinyes weren't giving her away – had in fact spotted what she was doing and were trying to disguise it from the Magician. Not paying Lara any mind, he casually formed three burning ethereal swords from his thoughts and willed them to impale each of the sisters in turn. She felt the three screaming again, this time in agony. 

_Be quiet._ His thought, coldly contemptuous.

A fragment of the power entered her. 

It made her gasp. Her back arched, involuntary twitches passing through her limbs as nerve endings fired spontaneously. Searing heat filled her chest. It felt like her heart had stopped beating, but she didn't care. 

For a time she just gloried in the sensation. The world her around her had taken on a vivid sharpness, darkness peeling back in a riotous display of colour. The smell of blood and sweat took on a weird multi-layered exotic quality, overlaying the visual. She found herself staring at the point where Charron was channelling and then beyond, able to feel strange presences pulling at her.

Through the crack was . . .

Lara jerked hard back to reality, fighting vertiginous panic. She remembered what she was trying to do, and attempted to direct the stolen power down to her wrists. 

It was surprisingly easy, instinct guiding action and the power responding accordingly – like it was an extra limb. She concentrated on slowing the blood flow, forcing the slashed flesh to re-knit, and weakening the substance of the chains that held her. 

Then it was gone – all used up. 

She was left with a hollow, nauseous gap inside – an addict in need of another score. Blood still ran sluggishly, although the cuts were less severe than before. The chain held as firm, but it appeared discoloured. 

Shaking fractionally, she reached out to try and steal another dose.

This time Joanna provided the distraction Lara needed to cover her actions.

The woman groaned, forcing herself up onto her hands and knees. She spat a mouthful of bloody saliva before rising shakily to her feet.

Shorn of the protective magicks of the Hand – and with Strickland and his other bodyguards decimated – Charron was forced to withdraw some of his attention from the ritual again. "You're not one of the dear departed Mr. Lomax's crew, so I'm guessing you must be one of those tiresome Heretic types. Perhaps you'd like to save us both some time and effort and throw yourself of the cliff? No? Well, no harm in asking."

Lara could sense him siphoning off a fraction of the power he was drawing from the ritual. It was startling to realise that she could tell exactly what he was doing, weaving intricate threads of power through the signal fires and around Joanna, ready to immolate her with a moment's thought.

"You don't recognise me then?" Joanna sounded almost casual. She certainly showed no sign of being aware of the immediacy of her peril

"Recognise you dear. Should I? All you heretics tend into blend into one bland amorphous mass after a while, although I'll grant that you're more attractive than most."

"I just thought you might. We do have what you could call a personal attachment."

Apparently curiosity stayed Charron's hand, temporarily at least. The blood flow had trickled to a stop again with his attention distracted, and this time Lara could sense something's impatience – something beyond. It made her quail. Above the magician reality seemed to bow inwards as something pressed against it, like a canvas awning after torrential rain. 

"I'm sorry dear, I don't remember you. And something about you says that I would have if we'd ever met." He smiled, charming even now. "Apologies if I've done anything to offend you, but I really can't recall. I always do try to remember which bugs I've squashed, just in case the consequences come back to haunt me, but in your case . . ." He shook his head. "If you're looking for revenge I'm not going to provide much satisfaction I'm afraid."

"Not to worry." Joanna paused, then she smiled too. 

The whole scene was incredibly surreal in its calm politeness. Lara half expected her to break out a flask of tea and maybe some crumpets for the two of them to share. "And it's not about revenge. Everyone always assumes that, but as I was saying to a friend earlier, how could I want revenge for being born?" Her smile broadened, taking on a slightly bitter twist. "Right dad?"

For the first time ever Lara saw genuine shock in Charron's reaction. The threads of power reaching into the fires suddenly disintegrated as he lost his grip on them. For a second or so both blazed brighter.

She forced her own sense of shock aside, taking advantage of Charron's loss of attention. This time, as she directed the stolen energy through her wrists, she thought she felt the manacles crack. They still held as she strained against them though. Then the power was used up again. 

The nausea and sense of hollowness was much worse than before, leaving her doubled up and gagging, barely able to stand.

Charron's expression quickly smoothed over. "I think you must be mistaken dear. Really . . ."

"But you know I'm not, don't you?" Joanna interrupted him. "I hear you went through quite a lot of women in your youth – at least the ones you thought you could steal any fragment of the art from – so I'll understand if you need a bit of a memory jog. Sarah Ironheart? Does that ring any bells? Don't worry, I'm not chasing you for twenty four years back alimony payments."

Charron seemed to have been struck dumb. Lara felt the power he'd gathered about him slipping. If he lost his grip entirely the explosion would probably remove half the cliff face.

"She really loved you know. Deluded, but still. That was why she overrode all the careful precautions you took against getting her pregnant – to have a little piece of you that would always be hers. I think she still hopes secretly that'll you'll come back to her one day."

Charron eventually found his voice. "You've picked a very bad moment for a family reunion. I'm sorry, you didn't say what your name was . . .?"

"Joanna."

"Joanna? Very nice name. Now, another time I'd really love to get to know you better . . ."

"I didn't come here to get to know you, dad."

"No." He smiled again. "No, of course not. You came to stop me, didn't you?"

"I came to put you down," she corrected. "I found out about you when I was twelve and mom was drunk. I did some investigation and tried to find you, as much for her as for me – I thought it might make things better. Then I found out you were a monster." Her smile was bitter. "It was a strange feeling. But blood is thicker than water, and I saw where my duty lay."

"Who says the youth of today doesn't have a sense of responsibility anymore? I think I should feel proud."

"I don't care what you feel."

"No."

Joanna started towards him. Lara saw Charron regain his controlling grip and, just before she reached him, thrust a thread of raw energy straight in her face. 

It wasn't subtle. Joanna was picked up and hurled backwards as if a truck had hit her. She slammed against the cliff face and fell down face first, limp and broken. Charron dismissed her from his attention.

The ritual resumed.

Lara managed to draw one more surreptitious dose of power into herself. Then a groan of pain was drawn from her throat as Charron began drawing the blood and the life from all three of them again, hand over fist.

It was obvious he intended to finish things as swiftly as possible now, and she could feel herself rapidly dwindling – dying. There was one instant of blinding agony to top everything she had so far felt. Then Alecto was gone from her, torn brutally free. Hsu Yi collapsed entirely and even Claudia – who had so far remained statuesque throughout – staggered.

The air above Charron boiled. The split in realities had grown from a thin crack to something that resembled a strange flower – or a black hole perhaps, collapsing furiously in on itself, sucking and devouring. A weird cacophony of sounds assaulted Lara's eardrums – singing, screaming, high-pitched whistling, and low chuckling laughter.

Other cracks were opening up and things were slipping through, larger and than before – Something horrendous that her eyes couldn't quite grasp shot less than a foot over her head, and there were others that followed it. She strained against the chains again but they still refused give, and with Charron's attention fully fixed on drawing the power he needed, she couldn't manage to channel the fragment of stolen power burning inside her.

Lara screamed inwardly in frustration.

She saw the Erinyes – all three together – being sucked inexorably into the devouring hole in reality, their forms stretching out and melting. Their eyes blazed furiously as they fought against the pull, but she could see they couldn't escape – stuck in the event horizon and spiralling down towards the central nullpoint in a rapidly decaying orbit.

Charron's hair stood on end, looking almost white. Strange St. Elmo's fire limned his body. His head was thrown back, face twisted in ecstasy. "She comes!" His voice reverberated, scarcely sounding human.

One of the Erinyes was swallowed up, a howling cry of fury dwindling away to nothing. Above Charron a split ran across the sky. 

As she struggled desperately to break free Lara noticed that Joanna had somehow managed to haul herself upright again, though it looked like it was going to be too late. 

She felt a sudden, shocking emptiness. Alecto too had been swallowed up, and as the connection between them was severed it felt like part of her had been taken with it, lost forever. Another split formed in the air, running perpendicular to the first.

The final sister was on the point of being sucked into oblivion to complete the ritual. Lara was aware of a vast presence gazing down out of the split, waiting – patient and implacable now that success was assurred – herself and everyone else no more significant than motes of dust before it. Everyone within miles would be destroyed in the crossover, Charron included. 

If he knew he obviously didn't care.

Lara tried again to break her bonds, fuelled by absolutely desperation now. Grasping all the power she could draw in, she directed it to shatter the chains, heedless anymore of whether she attracted Charron's attention or not. 

There was a moment of searing heat. Then, suddenly, the chains shattered into fragments.

Charron's eyes snapped round on her. 

She could feel his total amazement at what she'd done, and could also sense him shaping some of the maelstrom of power to strike her down. She tried to move, but weakened by blood loss and her exertions to break free, she only managed a couple of tottering steps. His glass eye glowing brightly with molten fire, Charron hurled a wall of air and darkness at her . . .

Just as Joanna stumbled in front of him.

"No!" Charron sounded furious. 

Lara saw Joanna's blood splatter over him, and with it came a backwash of potent magic. Briefly she had the sense of him trying frantically to reign in the excess energy whilst still juggling the massive river of power from the divine blood of the Erinyes. 

Abruptly there was a loud snapping sound, followed by a fleeting impression of a massive implosion.

The splits in the sky flowed back to a single point, as if time had been set to reverse. There was a brief impression of the last of the three Erinyes flying free, then even that dwindled to nothing and vanished.

Charron was gone. There was no trace of him. He'd simply vanished. Both of the signal fires had been snuffed out.

Lara blinked, not quite grasping what had happened. After a few seconds her balance went and she dropped to her knees, head spinning. For a while she thought she was going to faint, but she didn't. Eventually she stirred herself, ripping off strips of her dress and using them to bind her wrists in an effort to stem the blood that was still leaking sluggishly. That done she stood up, moving to where Joanna had fallen.

She rolled the woman over onto her back, brushing her hair back from her face. It was obvious immediately that she was dead, her chest torn open, eyes staring vacantly into the middle distance. Looking at her, Lara didn't know what she should feel.

There was a hole inside her, she realised – an analogue to the gaping wound in Joanna's flesh. She wondered what she had lost, but it was difficult to bring herself to really care. She also wondered vaguely where Charron had gone, and if this meant it was over. Again she wasn't particularly interested. Kneeling there, she listened to the silence echoing inside her head.

Overhead the clouds broke, a single shaft of sunlight spearing down. Far below the sea lapped gently against the cliffs. 

Everything went on as before.

Epilogue

Luke Charron stared at the blood staining his hands and barely managed to suppress the laughter that bubbled unbidden inside him.

A soft sound, fleeting and stealthy, brought him back to more rational levels, and for the first time he bothered to look closely at his new surroundings.

He was standing in an orchard. A heady, sensual fragrance filled his nostrils. It hinted at obsessive desire and something new that might have been loss. Trees ran in straight lines to either side of him, laden down with dark red blossom, and it was from these the perfume originated in thick clouds. It was dusk – here it was always dusk – the sky overhead a livid, swirling mass of purple, red and gold.

Beyond the orchard rolling hills stretched as far as the eye could see, and as he looked around he spotted a castle, tall black spires and minarets rising high above the treetops. It was a castle from a faerie-tale rather than reality – home of the wicked faerie-queen, sinister yet at the same time darkly beautiful. The dimensions of it appeared strange and distorted, impossibly contradictory. Escher on a bad acid trip. You could send yourself insane if you tried too hard to figure it out. He quickly looked away.

_Look on the brightside_, he told himself. _You were so much closer than before_. The urge to laugh was back. 

The previous attempt, in the New Mexico desert, fuelled by the pain and suffering of mortal men, had almost torn him in half. This time, the blood of the divine had actually managed to open the way. His daughter's blood – his own blood – was not apparently quite sufficient to form the third key he had needed though. 

_Close, but no cigar._

The spell had completed with Joanna's death, and performed his bidding in the only way that was left to it. If it couldn't bring _Her_ into his presence, then it could at least manage the reverse.

There was another sound, a little louder than the first. This time Charron thought he saw a glimpse of fleeting movement, deep in the shadows of the trees.

He couldn't sense his queen, but then, he wasn't surprised. He didn't really have much left to offer her.

There was more movement, distinct this time, accompanied by a soft, whispering hiss. He realised then that shadows were not merely patches of shade but separate entities in and of themselves. As he watched several off them detached themselves from the trees and started towards him.

"So, my bride of darkness, it ends like this. In divorce." The shadows closed in. "I hope you'll forgive me if I don't go quietly." 

This time Luke Charron did laugh.

* * *

Emil stood on the beach at the foot of the cliffs, watching the sunset.

The sky had cleared a couple of hours ago, and it almost seemed that the darkness had never been – that it had in fact been a fine summer's day like any other and it was merely his memory playing tricks. 

He'd carried Joanna's body down the steps in his arms, not caring that it might cause him to fall. By the time he'd reached the bottom his arms and back had been on fire, and he'd hardly been able to move, but he'd still forced himself to carry her to the edge of the sea. Now she was lying on the sand, the tide lapping gently around her. The red in the water had faded, almost gone – though there was still a vague suggestion of the taint.

"So, you'll be looking for a new job now then?" Emil said out of the blue.

Simon, who was standing off to one side started fractionally, surprised at being spoken to. He'd been waiting at the foot of the steps when Emil had come down, not apparently much the worse for his close encounter with the Messenger.

"Eh? Oh . . . yeah, probably. I take it Scott won't be coming down. The firework display I saw earlier was him, wasn't it?"

"Yes. It was him."

Simon drew a breath between his teeth. "Not surprised. I think I have a hankering to get out of the mercenary business while I'm breathing. Why?"

Emil didn't answer right away.

"So. Are you the only one who made it?"

He hesitated. "Lara's still up there I think." They hadn't spoken – had just looked at each other. Emil had been had being going to say something, but he'd sensed a strangeness about her – a distance. And then of course there'd been Joanna's body.

"Well." Simon sounded surprised. "I'm glad. I think. What about . . .?" He hesitated over the name.

"Gone."

"Dead then?"

"Gone," Emil reiterated flatly.

Simon sighed. Tension lingered around him.

"I doubt he'll be coming back though."

"I hope you're right." Then. "You mentioned about me looking for a new job?"

"You've got the talents for it. And the party line is you'll be doing it for good. If that sort of thing appeals to you."

"What are you talking about?" Simon looked at him askance.

"I think . . ." He broke off, looking down and watching the surf as it stirred Joanna's hair around her head. "I think there's going someone with a couple of vacancies to fill – and I'm sure you'll do a much better job of it than me."

* * *

Lara looked into Claudia's eyes. There was no hint of anything looking back.

She'd been half inclined to leave the woman to die, but the bleeding from her wrists had slowed and almost stopped, and it didn't appear that was going to happen of its own accord anytime soon. And actively killing her appeared to require more effort than saving her.

So she'd bandaged the woman's wounds as best she could.

"Who are you? Or who were you?"

There was no answer.

"I suppose it doesn't really matter. Another of his victims, whether willing or not. Afraid I can't do much about the chains, but even if could I don't think I would. Don't altogether trust you I'm afraid." 

Lara took a step back. "I'll get help. If there's any help to get right now." Her voice was absent – distant. Her gaze strayed to where Hsu Yi lay. There had been a faint heartbeat and she'd still been breathing when she'd checked, although whether that still remained the case she wasn't sure. "I don't know if it'll be soon enough for you or her, but that's the way it goes."

Lara turned away from Claudia and started to walk away. She spotted something lying on the ground, glinting in the sunlight, and paused briefly, bending down to pick it up. It took several seconds for her to realise it was Luke Charron's glass eye. She stared at it. Instead of throwing it away for some reason she pocketed it. Then she resumed walking.

Somewhere down in the echoing vaults of Claudia's being something stirred. Tisiphone, the avenging one, diminished almost to nothing, had found a small fertile patch in which she could take and grow – regain her strength and powers.

She watched coldly from behind crystal blue eyes as Lara disappeared from view.

THE END


End file.
